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libxlsxwriter/docs/src/working_with_formulas.dox
John McNamara 8b708b2885 Added docs on working with formulas. 
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2018-03-18 01:03:03 +00:00

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/**
@page working_with_formulas Working with Formulas
@tableofcontents
In general a formula in Excel can be used directly in the
worksheet_write_formula() function:
@code
worksheet_write_formula(worksheet, 0, 0, "=10*B1 + C1", NULL);
@endcode
@image html working_with_formulas1.png
However, there are a few potential issues and differences that the user should
be aware of. These are explained in the following sections.
@section ww_formulas_non_us Non US Excel functions and syntax
Excel stores formulas in the format of the US English version, regardless
of the language or locale of the end-user's version of Excel. Therefore all
formula function names written using libxlsxwriter must be in English:
@code
// The following formula syntax is okay.
worksheet_write_formula(worksheet, 0, 0, "=SUM(1, 2, 3)", NULL);
// The following formula syntax is in French. Will cause error on load.
worksheet_write_formula(worksheet, 0, 1, "=SOMME(1, 2, 3)", NULL);
@endcode
Also, formulas must be written with the US style separator/range operator
which is a comma (not semi-colon). Therefore a formula with multiple values
should be written as follows:
@code
// The following formula syntax is okay.
worksheet_write_formula(worksheet, 0, 0, "=SUM(1, 2, 3)", NULL);
// The following formula use semi-colons. Will cause error on load.
worksheet_write_formula(worksheet, 0, 1, "=SUM(1; 2; 3)", NULL);
@endcode
If you have a non-English version of Excel you can use the following
multi-lingual [Formula Translator](http://en.excel-translator.de/language/)
to help you convert the formula. It can also replace semi-colons with commas.
@section ww_formulas_future Formulas added in Excel 2010 and later
Excel 2010 and later versions added functions which weren't defined in the
original file specification. These functions are referred to by Microsoft as
"Future Functions". Examples of these functions are `ACOT`, `CHISQ.DIST.RT` ,
`CONFIDENCE.NORM`, `STDEV.P`, `STDEV.S` and `WORKDAY.INTL`.
When written using `worksheet_write_formula()` these functions need to be
fully qualified with a `_xlfn.` (or other) prefix as they are shown the list
below. For example:
@code
worksheet_write_formula(worksheet, 0, 0, "=_xlfn.STDEV.S(B1:B10)", NULL);
@endcode
They will appear without the prefix in Excel:
@image html working_with_formulas2.png
The following list is taken from
[MS XLSX extensions documentation on future functions](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd907480%28v=office.12%29.aspx).
| Future Functions |
| -------------------------------- |
| `_xlfn.ACOT` |
| `_xlfn.ACOTH` |
| `_xlfn.AGGREGATE` |
| `_xlfn.ARABIC` |
| `_xlfn.BASE` |
| `_xlfn.BETA.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.BETA.INV` |
| `_xlfn.BINOM.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.BINOM.DIST.RANGE` |
| `_xlfn.BINOM.INV` |
| `_xlfn.BITAND` |
| `_xlfn.BITLSHIFT` |
| `_xlfn.BITOR` |
| `_xlfn.BITRSHIFT` |
| `_xlfn.BITXOR` |
| `_xlfn.CEILING.MATH` |
| `_xlfn.CEILING.PRECISE` |
| `_xlfn.CHISQ.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.CHISQ.DIST.RT` |
| `_xlfn.CHISQ.INV` |
| `_xlfn.CHISQ.INV.RT` |
| `_xlfn.CHISQ.TEST` |
| `_xlfn.COMBINA` |
| `_xlfn.CONCAT` |
| `_xlfn.CONFIDENCE.NORM` |
| `_xlfn.CONFIDENCE.T` |
| `_xlfn.COT` |
| `_xlfn.COTH` |
| `_xlfn.COVARIANCE.P` |
| `_xlfn.COVARIANCE.S` |
| `_xlfn.CSC` |
| `_xlfn.CSCH` |
| `_xlfn.DAYS` |
| `_xlfn.DECIMAL` |
| `ECMA.CEILING` |
| `_xlfn.ERF.PRECISE` |
| `_xlfn.ERFC.PRECISE` |
| `_xlfn.EXPON.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.F.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.F.DIST.RT` |
| `_xlfn.F.INV` |
| `_xlfn.F.INV.RT` |
| `_xlfn.F.TEST` |
| `_xlfn.FILTERXML` |
| `_xlfn.FLOOR.MATH` |
| `_xlfn.FLOOR.PRECISE` |
| `_xlfn.FORECAST.ETS` |
| `_xlfn.FORECAST.ETS.CONFINT` |
| `_xlfn.FORECAST.ETS.SEASONALITY` |
| `_xlfn.FORECAST.ETS.STAT` |
| `_xlfn.FORECAST.LINEAR` |
| `_xlfn.FORMULATEXT` |
| `_xlfn.GAMMA` |
| `_xlfn.GAMMA.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.GAMMA.INV` |
| `_xlfn.GAMMALN.PRECISE` |
| `_xlfn.GAUSS` |
| `_xlfn.HYPGEOM.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.IFNA` |
| `_xlfn.IFS` |
| `_xlfn.IMCOSH` |
| `_xlfn.IMCOT` |
| `_xlfn.IMCSC` |
| `_xlfn.IMCSCH` |
| `_xlfn.IMSEC` |
| `_xlfn.IMSECH` |
| `_xlfn.IMSINH` |
| `_xlfn.IMTAN` |
| `_xlfn.ISFORMULA` |
| `ISO.CEILING` |
| `_xlfn.ISOWEEKNUM` |
| `_xlfn.LOGNORM.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.LOGNORM.INV` |
| `_xlfn.MAXIFS` |
| `_xlfn.MINIFS` |
| `_xlfn.MODE.MULT` |
| `_xlfn.MODE.SNGL` |
| `_xlfn.MUNIT` |
| `_xlfn.NEGBINOM.DIST` |
| `NETWORKDAYS.INTL` |
| `_xlfn.NORM.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.NORM.INV` |
| `_xlfn.NORM.S.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.NORM.S.INV` |
| `_xlfn.NUMBERVALUE` |
| `_xlfn.PDURATION` |
| `_xlfn.PERCENTILE.EXC` |
| `_xlfn.PERCENTILE.INC` |
| `_xlfn.PERCENTRANK.EXC` |
| `_xlfn.PERCENTRANK.INC` |
| `_xlfn.PERMUTATIONA` |
| `_xlfn.PHI` |
| `_xlfn.POISSON.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.QUARTILE.EXC` |
| `_xlfn.QUARTILE.INC` |
| `_xlfn.QUERYSTRING` |
| `_xlfn.RANK.AVG` |
| `_xlfn.RANK.EQ` |
| `_xlfn.RRI` |
| `_xlfn.SEC` |
| `_xlfn.SECH` |
| `_xlfn.SHEET` |
| `_xlfn.SHEETS` |
| `_xlfn.SKEW.P` |
| `_xlfn.STDEV.P` |
| `_xlfn.STDEV.S` |
| `_xlfn.SWITCH` |
| `_xlfn.T.DIST` |
| `_xlfn.T.DIST.2T` |
| `_xlfn.T.DIST.RT` |
| `_xlfn.T.INV` |
| `_xlfn.T.INV.2T` |
| `_xlfn.T.TEST` |
| `_xlfn.TEXTJOIN` |
| `_xlfn.UNICHAR` |
| `_xlfn.UNICODE` |
| `_xlfn.VAR.P` |
| `_xlfn.VAR.S` |
| `_xlfn.WEBSERVICE` |
| `_xlfn.WEIBULL.DIST` |
| `WORKDAY.INTL` |
| `_xlfn.XOR` |
| `_xlfn.Z.TEST` |
@section ww_formulas_errors Dealing with formula errors
If there is an error in the syntax of a formula it is usually displayed in
Excel as @c \#NAME?. Alternatively you may get a warning from Excel when the
file is loaded. If you encounter an error like this you can debug it as
follows:
1. Ensure the formula is valid in Excel by copying and pasting it into a
cell. Note, this should be done in Excel and @b not other applications
such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice since they may have slightly different
syntax.
2. Ensure the formula is using comma separators instead of semi-colons, see
@ref ww_formulas_non_us above.
3. Ensure the formula is in English, see @ref ww_formulas_non_us above.
4. Ensure that the formula doesn't contain an Excel 2010+ future function as
listed above (@ref ww_formulas_future). If it does then ensure that the
correct prefix is used.
Finally if you have completed all the previous steps and still get a
@c \#NAME? error you can examine a valid Excel file to see what the correct
syntax should be. To do this you should create a valid formula in Excel and
save the file. You can then examine the XML in the unzipped file.
The following shows how to do that using Linux `unzip` and `libxml's
[xmllint](http://xmlsoft.org/xmllint.html) to format the XML for clarity:
$ unzip myfile.xlsx -d myfile
$ xmllint --format myfile/xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml | grep '<f>'
<f>SUM(1, 2, 3)</f>
@section ww_formulas_results Formula Results
Libxlsxwriter doesn't calculate the result of a formula and instead stores the
value 0 as the formula result. It then sets a global flag in the XLSX file to
say that all formulas and functions should be recalculated when the file is
opened.
This is the method recommended in the Excel documentation and in general it
works fine with spreadsheet applications. However, applications that don't
have a facility to calculate formulas will only display the 0
results. Examples of such applications are Excel Viewer, PDF Converters, and
some mobile device applications.
If required, it is also possible to specify the calculated result of the
formula using the `result` parameter for
:func:`worksheet_write_formula_num()`:
@code
worksheet_write_formula_num(worksheet, 0, 0, "=2+2", NULL, 4);
@endcode
Next: @ref working_with_dates
*/
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