Bug 71175

Summary: Other: "Enhancement Bug", Design Suggestion, A More Intuitive Syntax for Array Outputs
Product: LibreOffice Reporter: David Elm <davidelm4884>
Component: CalcAssignee: Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status: NEW ---    
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Windows (All)   
Whiteboard: BSA
Crash report or crash signature: Regression By:
Bug Depends on:    
Bug Blocks: 108019, 108827    

Description David Elm 2013-11-02 23:38:51 UTC 
I'm a big fan of spreadsheets, but I've never liked how spreadsheets including LibreOffice Calc handle functions with multiple cell outputs.

Here's what I imagine.

=transpose(A2:A5, B2:E2)

Where A2:A5 are the input cells and B2:E2 are the transposed output cells. I'm not sure what the cell itself should show, maybe something to indicate whether the procedure completed successfully.

or

=sort(A2:A5, B2:B5)

Where A2:A5 are the input cells and B2:B5 are the sorted output cells.

or maybe

=linear.regression(A2:B10, C1, C2, C3)

C1=slope, C2=intercept, C3=r²

I think this sort of design would be far more intuitive than the current standard.

BTW: Thanks for all the work you guys do.  It is appreciated.
Operating System: Windows 8
Version: unspecified
Comment 1 Owen Genat (retired) 2013-11-03 01:18:00 UTC 
Severity set to enhancement. Status set to NEW. The related AskLO thread is:

http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/24712/design-suggestion-a-better-way-for-array-functions/

... where I (oweng) propose an alternate notation and method of handling.