Re: maths functions and spreadsheet

On 28/01/2008, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Jan 28, 2008 8:42 PM, e-letter <inpost(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> I am not sure what spreadsheet software you are using or imagining
> using; I would be inclined to consider how the spreadsheet works when
> considering this...
>
> - If your spreadsheet can dynamically grab data via ODBC/JDBC, (I
> think Excel can do that), you could choose either to do the
> calculation in the database, or have the formula in the spreadsheet.
>
> - If you don't have a particular spreadsheet in mind, and really just
> intend to deploy "a report," then I'd be inclined to handle this
> calculation in the database. That way, you don't need to worry about
> the interactions between the reporting language and SQL.

Now I use calc. Initially, I wanted to do the following:

Use two input cells, a1 and a2, to enter data and the results to
appear in cells b1, b2, b3, b4.
If I add a value of x in a1, I want the value y in a2 to be calculated
using some formula such as y=3x. Similarly if I enter a value y in a2,
I want a1 to be calculated.

I also want values of a, b, c, d to be calculated and displayed in
cells b1, b2, b3, b4 respectively, depending on a formula based upon
values of x and y (for example a=2x^y, b=x-y, etc).

From what I've been told so far, the above task cannot be achieved
using a spreadsheet, since missing arguments need to be considered.
Hence trying to investigate if some sort of database may be
appropriate.

As a novice it is difficult to make a judgement as to whether the task
I want to achieve is best perfomed in a spreadsheet, database,
programming language (fortran?) or some combination.

On 29-01-08 Andrej wrote:
"...would be pl/R,..."

I presume you mean perl and R, well I have R; presumably I could
substitute perl for another programming language.

Now I have a spreadsheet which consists of empirical data and
fundamental physical values used through numerous worksheets. I
thought that it may be more efficient to use a database to store the
various tables of empirical data, physical values, etc. and then have
some spreadsheet, document, etc. where I could enter my variables (a
and/or b) and see the resulting output (a simple table initially).
Hope that this explanation helps.

Yours,

René