Null Value - now a $2,000,000 Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Null
  • Start date Start date
N

Null

I've tried every approach imaginable years ago to get a true NULL resul
without any luck. At that time an Excel programmer told me that to ad
a true Null value would require reprogramming Excel's calculatio
engine. They even said I was the first person to ever request thi
function - I found that very hard to believe.

It took me at least 5 minutes initially to explain to the engineer tha
I needed a true null result, not "" or any of the other variant type o
returns because they did not work for my applications. Even tried t
get their challenge them by saying Lotus could perform this function.
guess the bottom line is that Excel still has not fixed this flaw.

Any suggestions or know who to contact within Excel for the answers
 
What exactly are you trying to achieve? Are you looking for Excel's
counterpart to SQL's NULL?

/i.
 
It sounds like another classic case of the A-B problem.
Someone needs to do task A, and thinks that method B might work.
So they ask "How can I do B?", when instead they should be asking "How can I
do A?".

immanuel said:
What exactly are you trying to achieve? Are you looking for Excel's
counterpart to SQL's NULL?

/i.
Click to expand...
 
I've tried every approach imaginable years ago to get a true NULL result
without any luck. At that time an Excel programmer told me that to add
a true Null value would require reprogramming Excel's calculation
engine. They even said I was the first person to ever request this
function - I found that very hard to believe.
Click to expand...

You would have had to have asked this in the mid-1980s to have been the first,
but I suppose it's possible you spoke to a relatively new Excel programmer. All
decent stats packages have provided missing value support, which is close to how
blank cells are treated in Excel - SAS since the 1960s. That an Excel programmer
hadn't heard of this just means that this particular programmers had no exposure
to stats in college (all too clearly obvious that this has been true of most
Excel programmers).
It took me at least 5 minutes initially to explain to the engineer that
I needed a true null result, not "" or any of the other variant type of
returns because they did not work for my applications. Even tried to
get their challenge them by saying Lotus could perform this function. I
guess the bottom line is that Excel still has not fixed this flaw.
Click to expand...

Well, with regard to any Lotus spreadsheets (123 and the late Symphony), you
were dead wrong. Neither 123 nor Symphony provided nor provide (123 only)
anything like NULL values as formula results.
Any suggestions or know who to contact within Excel for the answers?
Click to expand...

You might as well write to Bill Gates himself. Then you can be ignored top-down.

Microsoft isn't going to add this to Excel any time soon.
 
I've used Excel for over 15 years and I have to agree with you guys tha
this function does not exist and there is no viable workaround withi
the program. Null one of the most powerful functions available and M
left it out. THIS is just another tribute to MS programming or lack o
it.

Harlan Grove, brought up a scary point - Excel programmers whose onl
exposure/experience to problems such as no Null function bein
restricted to a stat class and not real world applications. Biff get
the award for must succinct answer.

Have any of you had the opportunity to work with any add-ins o
programs that may be compatible with Excel which utilizes a Null value
 
Any suggestions or know who to contact within Excel for the answers?
Click to expand...
(e-mail address removed)

Though, how useful it will be is anyone's guess.

Other than the abstract need for a NULL function, do you have a
specific problem you want to solve? Someone might be able to suggest
an alternative formulation.

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta, MS MVP -- Excel
www.tushar-mehta.com
Excel, PowerPoint, and VBA add-ins, tutorials
Custom MS Office productivity solutions
 
message
Other than the abstract need for a NULL function, do you have a
specific problem you want to solve? Someone might be able to
suggest an alternative formulation.
Click to expand...

See this thread in another group:


Or alternatively, a possible answer to the specific problem:



HTH,

Alan.
 
Back
Top