Re: reference to same row in spreadsheet

From: Ben Alexander <bva@alexanderonline.org>
To: Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>
Cc: Stephan Schmitt <drmabuse@cs.tu-berlin.de>, emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: reference to same row in spreadsheet
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:55:19 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <81A865AF-3655-43C2-A02F-21EE5BD46394@alexanderonline.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <D72050B6-53AA-44DD-A4D3-3EF12C293BBA@uva.nl>

How about adding a customizable variable which defaults to nil.  (Call  
it org-use-new-spreadsheet-semantics). If it is nil, whenever the new  
syntax is used, raise a warning.
The warning could be:
1. just a message to the echo area
2. inserted into the top of the updated table
3. an error which aborts spreadsheet calculations

This pushes the responsibility onto users to check their tables before  
they set the option.

So I'm thinking it's unfair to make that an org-wide setting...

More thinking...

Another option is to include a file only variable like this
#+ORG_VERSION: [6.2]--
or
#+ORG_VERSION: --[6.2]

The first option would cause old versions of org-mode to abort  
processing, and the second would cause new versions to abort.  This  
might help with any and all future changes to syntax, and perhaps  
allow users to mark the files they don't want to change yet.  Perhaps,  
if they are careful, they'll be able to load a different version of  
org-mode to process an individual file.

I'm reminded of something I had learned about perl, long ago.  If  
Carsten and community like this, perhaps someone could suggest the  
most elisp like way of doing version comparisons.  Failing that, I'd  
suggest looking at the perl way of doing it, which allowed for  
multiple dots in the version string
1.0 < 2.0 < 3.0 < 10.0 < 20.0 < 100.0
and
1.0< 1.1 < 1.2 < 1.100 < 2.0

I think (but can't remember) that version numbers had to have pairs of  
digits (1.1.1 was illegal you had to use 1.1.1.0).  There must have  
been a reason OR I'm wrong about the requirement.

Just my musings

On 2008-Dec-18, at 16:25, Carsten Dominik wrote:

> You are right, this is an incompatible change.  Dammit.
>
> What should  do?  Opinions?
>
> The problem is that this change may lead to older tables
> evaluated incorrectly.  I do like the new convention and
> think that @+0 or leaving out the row  specifications are
> good alternatives - but maybe we are obliged to keep
> the old convention....
>
> - Carsten
>
> On Dec 18, 2008, at 4:01 PM, Stephan Schmitt wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> the reference to the last row @0 led to incompatible changes:
>>
>> * spreadsheet: relative reference to same row
>> (using Org mode version 6.15d)
>>
>> The Org mode version 6.15 introduced @0 as a reference to the last
>> row for spreadsheet (org-table) formulas.  This leads to problems if
>> you used it as reference to the same row before.
>>
>> - description from [[http://orgmode.org/Changes.html][Org-mode list  
>> of
>> user-visible changes]]:
>>
>>   Spreadsheet references to the last table line.
>>
>>   You may now use @0 to reference the last dataline in a table in a
>>   stable way.
>>
>> - according to  [[info:org:References]]:
>>
>>   `0' refers to the current row and column.  Also, if you omit
>>   either the column or the row part of the reference, the current
>>   row/column is implied.
>>
>> However this doesn't work since @0 refers to the last line.
>>
>> If you press `C-c *' with the cursor inside the tables below, the
>> second column should contain the doubled value of the first.
>>
>> ** @0 refers to last line
>>
>> |---+---|
>> | 1 | 4 |
>> | 2 | 4 |
>> |---+---|
>> #+TBLFM: $2=2*@0$-1
>>
>>  this has worked before as reference to the same row, now it refers
>>  to the last row
>>
>> ** bug: omitting explicit reference
>>
>> |---+--------|
>> | 1 | #ERROR |
>> | 2 | #ERROR |
>> |---+--------|
>> #+TBLFM: $2=2*$-1
>>
>>  this seems to be a bug, should refer to the same row
>>
>> ** @+0 refers to same row
>>
>> |---+---|
>> | 1 | 2 |
>> | 2 | 4 |
>> |---+---|
>> #+TBLFM: $2=2*@+0$-1
>>
>>  works as expected
>>
>>
>> Greetings,
>> 	Stephan
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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