Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 64851
sum precision differs for inline and cell arguments
Last modified: 2017-05-20 11:11:13 UTC
In Calc, entering in a cell the formula [decimal separator is the comma , ] =SUM(-2,1;1495,87;-1493,77) gives (for scientific formatting) 0,00E+000 . Putting exactly the same three values in cells A1, A2 and A3 of the spreadsheet and using the formula =SUM(A1:A3) gives (for the same formatting as above) -9,10E-014 while =A1+A2+A3 gives again 0,00E+000 I understand the problem of finite precision math, however the three computations above should give the same result. The same issue can be reproduced with other triplets of numbers.
confirmed with 680_m164 on WinXP Pro SP2; =SUM(A1:A3) yields a different ("wrong") result
Hi Eike, one for you ? Frank
It depends on the order of evaluation. Changing that gives different results, see attachment. This isn't even a defect, I'm taking it as a cosmetical make-up. Btw, it's the same in Excel, just that they calculate sum(a1:a3) in the same order as a1+a2+a3, we don't, due to internal processing. A user may expect to see identical results in this case, so it might be worth to change it. But certainly not a P3.
Created attachment 36436 [details] testcase
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".