Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Formula(3pm)			User Contributed Perl Documentation		     Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Formula(3pm)

NAME

       Formula - A class for generating Excel formulas

SYNOPSIS

       See the documentation for Spreadsheet::WriteExcel

DESCRIPTION

       This module is used by Spreadsheet::WriteExcel. You do not need to use it directly.

NOTES

       The following notes are to help developers and maintainers understand the sequence of operation. They are also intended as a pro-memoria
       for the author. ;-)

       Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Formula converts a textual representation of a formula into the pre-parsed binary format that Excel uses to store
       formulas. For example "1+2*3" is stored as follows: "1E 01 00 1E 02 00 1E 03 00 05 03".

       This string is comprised of operators and operands arranged in a reverse-Polish format. The meaning of the tokens in the above example is
       shown in the following table:

	   Token   Name        Value
	   1E	   ptgInt      0001   (stored as 01 00)
	   1E	   ptgInt      0002   (stored as 02 00)
	   1E	   ptgInt      0003   (stored as 03 00)
	   05	   ptgMul
	   03	   ptgAdd

       The tokens and token names are defined in the "Excel Developer's Kit" from Microsoft Press. "ptg" stands for Parse ThinG (as in "That lexer
       can't grok it, it's a parse thang.")

       In general the tokens fall into two categories: operators such as "ptgMul" and operands such as "ptgInt". When the formula is evaluated by
       Excel the operand tokens push values onto a stack. The operator tokens then pop the required number of operands off of the stack, perform
       an operation and push the resulting value back onto the stack. This methodology is similar to the basic operation of a reverse-Polish (RPN)
       calculator.

       Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Formula parses a formula using a "Parse::RecDescent" parser (at a later stage it may use a "Parse::Yapp" parser or
       "Parse::FastDescent").

       The parser converts the textual representation of a formula into a parse tree. Thus, "1+2*3" is converted into something like the
       following, "e" stands for expression:

		    e
		  / | 
		1   +	e
		      / | 
		    2	*   3

       The function "_reverse_tree()" recurses down through this structure swapping the order of operators followed by operands to produce a
       reverse-Polish tree. In other words the formula is converted from in-fix notation to post-fix. Following the above example the resulting
       tree would look like this:

		    e
		  / | 
		1   e	+
		  / | 
		2   3	*

       The result of the recursion is a single array of tokens. In our example the simplified form would look like the following:

	   (1, 2, 3, *, +)

       The actual return value contains some additional information to help in the secondary parsing stage:

	   (_num, 1, _num, 2, _num, 3, ptgMul, ptgAdd, _arg, 1)

       The additional tokens are:

	   Token       Meaning
	   _num        The next token is a number
	   _str        The next token is a string
	   _ref2d      The next token is a 2d cell reference
	   _ref3d      The next token is a 3d cell reference
	   _range2d    The next token is a 2d range
	   _range3d    The next token is a 3d range
	   _func       The next token is a function
	   _arg        The next token is the number of args for a function
	   _class      The next token is a function name
	   _vol        The formula contains a voltile function

       The "_arg" token is generated for all lists but is only used for functions that take a variable number of arguments.

       The "_class" token indicates the start of the arguments to a function. This allows the post-processor to decide the "class" of the ref and
       range arguments that the function takes. The class can be reference, value or array. Since function calls can be nested, the class variable
       is stored on a stack in the @class array. The class of the ref or range is then read as the top element of the stack $class[-1]. When a
       "_func" is read it pops the class value.

       Certain Excel functions such as RAND() and NOW() are designated as volatile and must be recalculated by Excel every time that a cell is
       updated. Any formulas that contain one of these functions has a specially formatted "ptgAttr" tag prepended to it to indicate that it is
       volatile.

       A secondary parsing stage is carried out by "parse_tokens()" which converts these tokens into a binary string. For the "1+2*3" example this
       would give:

	   1E 01 00 1E 02 00 1E 03 00 05 03

       This two-pass method could probably have been reduced to a single pass through the "Parse::RecDescent" parser. However, it was easier to
       develop and debug this way.

       The token values and formula values are stored in the %ptg and %functions hashes. These hashes and the parser object $parser are exposed as
       global data. This breaks the OO encapsulation, but means that they can be shared by several instances of Spreadsheet::WriteExcel called
       from the same program.

       Non-English function names can be added to the %functions hash using the "function_locale.pl" program in the "examples" directory of the
       distro. The supported languages are: German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, Italian and Swedish. These languages are not
       added by default because there are conflicts between functions names in different languages.

       The parser is initialised by "_init_parser()". The initialisation is delayed until the first formula is parsed. This eliminates the
       overhead of generating the parser in programs that are not processing formulas. (The parser should really be pre-compiled, this is to-do
       when the grammar stabilises).

AUTHOR

       John McNamara jmcnamara@cpan.org

COPYRIGHT

       X MM-MMX, John McNamara.

       All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.10.1							    2010-02-02				     Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Formula(3pm)