On 13/01/16 18:33, Rick C. Hodgin wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Wols Lists <antli...@youngman.org.uk > <mailto:antli...@youngman.org.uk>> wrote: > > On 13/01/16 17:37, Rick C. Hodgin wrote: > > Wol, I don't understand your objection. You have seen the spreadsheet I > > created which demonstrates the various behaviors. Which one of them is > > incorrect? > > Sorry, I haven't seen the spreadsheet ... > > > > The whole purpose of the Metric add-on is to auto-range by default, but > > to allow a user to explicitly set a range. I know in semiconductors, > > for example, that I'll be working in nanoseconds or picoseconds. As > > such, I want all of my cells to be in those ranges, so I will set that > > option. I want to see things from that base, while maintaining the real > > number in memory. > > > > This is what Metric would do. It would maintain the real value in > > memory, and then display it adjusted for the appropriate metric base. > > > > You'll have to give me an example of what you're talking about because > > right now I don't understand. Remember also that every cell can have > > its own settings, so it would be inappropriate to not have auto-ranging > > values when surrounding values nearby might be in completely different > > bases. It is more appropriate to have auto-ranging values by default, > > and then to have an explicitly-set range when required (such as always > > displaying nanoseconds, or picoseconds, so that everything is then in > > the common form for easy comparison). > > Okay, copying your example that I've just found ... > > > The important part of the Metric feature is that it always wraps the > value to the > > nearest power of 3, and shows values in those powers. 0.1234 would be > shown > > as 123.4 milliunits, or 1,234 microunits, > > Correction: should be 123,400 microunits. > > If the user does NOT EXPLICITLY choose units, milli-units, or > micro-units then BOTH of the first two examples are CORRECT and the last > one is wrong. > > > It's relative to the actual value, Wol. A value of 1 is one unit. A > value of .1 is 100 milliunits.
No no no - I get that. > > To address your need, however, it could be an add-in for a bias, > indicating that the value specified is already in nanounts, and > therefore it adjusts accordingly. > > > > That is, if the user has not told you, how do you choose between 0.1234 > units, or 123.4 milli-units. The correct answer is you cannot. At > school, I would have been expected to use 123.4 milli-units. Other > people would have said "hey, it's 0.1234 units". > > But if the user hasn't said anything, then 123,400 micro-units is wrong > by all standards :-) > > > No. If the value is .1234 then it is 123,400 micro-units because you > assume that 1.0 is in units. But, as you indicate, it could be altered > so that there could be a bias to indicate the 1.0 value begins at some > point. > If the the value is .1234 then yes it is 123,400 micro-units. But to DISPLAY it as 123,400 micro-units (unless the user has explicitly asked for it) is wrong. THAT is what I'm getting at. > > Basically, what I am saying is that if the user does not explicitly > specify what units they are asking for, then the following equation MUST > be true ... > > ( TRUNCATE( MANTISSA) == 0 ) IS CONSTANT > > > I don't understand what you mean here. I understand what a mantissa is, > but to truncate the mantissa means you are using the implicit-1 value, > which makes the binary fraction 1.000..., resulting in a value of 1.0 in > base-10. This results in a single unit-value, which is what the current > Metric definition and example states, and would provide for. > > > (Whether the constant is TRUE or FALSE is a matter of convention. This > should presumably be a spreadsheet-wide setting.) > > Put otherwise, if I present you with three numbers, 123, 12.3 and 1.23 > you can either leave them ALL alone, or convert them ALL to 0.123e3, > 0.0123e3 and 0.00123e3. What you mustn't do is convert some of them. > > > I agree. In the case of Metric, none of them would be converted except > for display. It would indicate 123 units, 12.3 units, 1.23 units. They > would remain unaltered internally. > Sorry, that formula applies to the DISPLAY format. So if my convention is FALSE, I can NOT display 0.1234 as "0.1234 units" because the DISPLAYED truncated mantissa is 0. I have to coerce the DISPLAY to 123.4 milli-units, because the truncated mantissa is now 123 and that's okay. > > Likewise, if you're given 12.3, 1.23, and 0.123 you then MUST convert > SOME of them, to 12.3, 1.23, and 123e-3, OR to 0.0123e3, 0.00123e3, and > 0.123. > > > In this case, it would be 12.3 units, 1.23 units, 123 milliunits. The > purpose of Metric, by default, is to auto-range the values so you are > not looking at lengthy decimals with leading 0s, or lengthy values with > trailing 0s before the decimal point. You get it into the appropriate > metric range, and view it there. However, should you want to look at > everything in terms of millivolts, for example, then you can set that, > and then the values shown will all be relative to 0.001 being 1 > millivolt. And, based on what you've said above, a bias could be added > so that the base units is given already in milli-units, so that 1.0 > would actually be 1 millivolt, but that would be additional information > beyond my original proposal, but still acceptable. > > I have one other suggestion I'd like to add after this one, and it is to > include commas in the decimal component, so that a large value with a > large value would result in: 1,234,567,890.098,754,432,1 That's good. But bear in mind national conventions. We're using a dot to indicate a decimal point, and we use either commas or spaces to indicate thousand separators. Bear in mind, however, that some cultures (many European) use the dot as a thousand separator and a comma as the decimal point. So that needs to be configurable too. > > In this way, the ability to break out the Metric portions within the > fraction would be visible, and easily identifiable. But, I may be > content to simply create that patch and post it online for anyone who > wants it, rather than feeding it back upstream to the mainline build. > > Best regards, > Rick C. Hodgin > Hope that clears it up. Cheers, Wol _______________________________________________ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
