Question

I am trying to sum up a series of individual cells in a spreadsheet and can not seem to figure out how to do it. In the SpreadSheetPlugin instructions, "list" and "range" are used interchangably yet are not these usually distinct? I think of a list as a non-contiguous set of individual cells and a range as a contiguous series of cells.

Definitions aside, all I want to do is something like summing up a list of individual cells (i.e. R3:C5, R6:C5, R10:C5, etc.) but I can't figure out how.

Am I missing something?

-- LynnwoodBrown - 03 Oct 2003

Answer

List and range are used interchangeably in the spreadsheet doc, however, most functions expect a range like R2:C5..R7:C5, and can't handle a comma delimited list of parameters.

As a workaround, first put the values in a cell range using $T() (like $T(R3:C5) for the cell R12:C1, $T(R6:C5) for the cell next to it), then SUM the range (like $SUM( R12:C1..R12:C3 )).

The Plugin could be enhanced to allow ranges and a variable list of parameters. That is, it can only be done for functions where the number of parameter can be increased without conflict like for $SUM(). That way you could use a formula like $SUM( R2:C5, R4:C5..R6:C5, R10:C5 ).

I added this as an enhancement request in SpreadSheetPluginDev

-- PeterThoeny - 12 Oct 2003

Thanks, Peter, for confirming my reading of the docs and adding the enhancement request. I'll try out the work around and see if it's worth the trouble.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 14 Oct 2003

The SpreadSheetPlugin understands now a comma delimited list of parameters and/or table cell ranges.

-- PeterThoeny - 26 Oct 2003