Re: Formulas on table cells containing '$'

[Bruno Barbier]

Jeff Trull <edaskel@att.net> writes:

> While investigating an error executing a table formula I discovered that
> cells containing '$' cause column references to be executed even when no
> attempt is made to evaluate cell contents as code. Here's a simple example:
>

Confirmed.


org tries first to resolve all references, recursively.


   '(length '(@1$3..@I$3))

   { resolving @1$3..@I$3 into ("$200.00" "$1.13" "$301.22") }
  
=  '(length '("$200.00" "$1.13" "$301.22"))

   { resolving $200 into ...
  
ERROR: '$200' is an invalid reference.



It's probably not by designed, but, it's definitely a limitation of
the current implementation.


As a workaround, you could hide your reference in elisp and resolve it
manually using `org-table-get-range'. That way you can add/remove "$" as
needed.


For example:

     | 3/1/2023  | Deposit                | $200.00 |
     | 3/13/2023 | Interest               | $1.13   |
     | 4/1/2023  | Deposit                | $301.22 |
     |-----------+------------------------+---------|
     |           | Number of Transactions | 3       |
     |           | Total                  | $502.35 |
     #+TBLFM: @4$3='(length (org-table-get-range (concat "@" "1$" "3..@" "I$" 
"3")))
     #+TBLFM: @5$3='(format "$%.2f" (apply '+ (mapcar (lambda (x) 
(string-to-number (substring x 1))) (org-table-get-range (concat "@" "1$" 
"3..@" "I$" "3")))))




Bruno