Rounding in org-mode tables

Rounding in org-mode tables

[James Hawley]

Hi!

I'm a relatively new emacs and org-mode user so I apologize for the 
basic nature of this question. Unfortunately, the answer is probably so 
obvious that no one has had to ask it before, and, as a result, I have 
not been able to find this subject in the mailing list.  Of course, I 
may not be doing a good search, so please accept another apology.

Anyway, all I am trying to do is to sum a column of numbers in a table 
in an org file.  Here's an example:

935.15
6483.80
7419.00
#+TBLFM: @16$4=vsum(@3$4..@4$4);%.2f

The answer is obviously being rounded but I don't want that and I 
cannot figure out the undoubtedly trivial way to stop it so I get the 
answer that I want to see - 7418.95.

Thanks for any help anyone offers on this simple (but frustrating for 
me) question.

Jim Hawley

Re: Rounding in org-mode tables

[Carsten Dominik]

On Aug 26, 2007, at 4:00, James Hawley wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I'm a relatively new emacs and org-mode user so I apologize for the 
> basic nature of this question. Unfortunately, the answer is probably 
> so obvious that no one has had to ask it before, and, as a result, I 
> have not been able to find this subject in the mailing list.  Of 
> course, I may not be doing a good search, so please accept another 
> apology.
>
> Anyway, all I am trying to do is to sum a column of numbers in a table 
> in an org file.  Here's an example:
>
> 935.15
> 6483.80
> 7419.00
> #+TBLFM: @16$4=vsum(@3$4..@4$4);%.2f
>
> The answer is obviously being rounded but I don't want that and I 
> cannot figure out the undoubtedly trivial way to stop it so I get the 
> answer that I want to see - 7418.95.
>
> Thanks for any help anyone offers on this simple (but frustrating for 
> me) question.

Org-mode uses a relatively compact output format for calc in order
to avoid that fields get too wide.  You can fix this by changing
the default format in `org-calc-default-mode' from (float 5) to (float 
8)
or so, but that means each time a number is produced with many digits,
all 8 will be displayed.

The other option is to change the format on the fly, just for a specific
formula, using (again for example) an f8 flag, like

$4 = vsum($1..$3);f8

Hope this helps.

- Carsten

Re: Rounding in org-mode tables

[James Hawley]

Carsten,

Many Thanks for your rapid response - your suggestion worked and your 
caution was helpful as well (e.g., using f7 showed 3 additional zeros).

For anyone reading the list that might be interested, here's how I 
fixed the example to get the two digits to the right of the decimal to 
print correctly.

Original table and formula

935.15
6483.80
7419.00
#+TBLFM: @16$4=vsum(@3$4..@4$4);%.2f    Original formula yields 7419.00


Fixed table and formula

935.15
6483.80
7419.00
#+TBLFM: @16$4=vsum(@3$4..@4$4);f6%.2f   Revised formula yields 7418.95
                                                                         
  ^^
                                                                        
added formatting



Jim