Why put + at the start of a formula?

[CliveInTokyo]

Greetings all,

This is my first post.

I am working on someone elses spreadsheet, and they have a formula similar to this:

=+k6+k12

Experimentation has failed to reveal the purpose of the + at the beginning of the formula, and it doesn't seem to be related to changing the sign of the number.

Can anyone enlighten me as to the purpose of this +?

 

[Todd Bardoni]

Todd, what do you mean "Death to the apostrophe!"? You've used one - and correctly too!

When in Rome...

 

[rotarinn]

I believe this isn't necessarily a throwback to Lotus. Entering + at the start of a formula is simply faster than pressing Shift+0 for the = sign, especially when you have your right hand on the numeric keys (don't know the english name for it) on the right of your keyboard.

I often use this method, and I have never used Lotus.

 

[Smitty]

Heya, Smitty. I don't believe you need to turn on Transition options to do:- +1+2 and get 3. I'm pretty sure Excel recognizes this.

You're right. With Transition enabled, you eliminate the need for the first "+". So entering 1+3 = 3.

Smitty

 

[Todd Bardoni]

You're right. With Transition enabled, you eliminate the need for the first "+". So entering 1+3 = 3.

Smitty

Cool! I did not know that.

 

[Smitty]

Duh - Not enough coffee yet. 1+3 = 3?

Smitty

 

[ozNoz]

Smitty, for sufficiently small values of 1, that formula may indeed be correct. :wink:
Probably unrelated, but what's with the double negatives I see in some posts? For example:
from: SumIF using 2 Specifications for 1 Result. Help Please

=SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(MATCH($E$3:$E$35,{"ERISA","IRA","PENSION"},0)),$C$3:$C$35)

I can't find any reference in VBA or Excel Help.

 

[Smitty]

See: http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=86470&highlight=coerce

Jacob explains it well.

Smitty

 

[erik.van.geit]

"--" makes a value out of a string

put True in A1
in B1 : = A1
in C1 : = --A1

you'll see what happens

an example in VBA:

Sub compare_val_to_str()
numval = 15
strval = "15"
  If strval = numval Then
  MsgBox strval & "(string) = " & numval & "(value)"
  Else: MsgBox strval & "(string) <> " & numval & "(value)"
  End If
If --strval = numval Then
MsgBox "--" & strval & "(string) = " & numval & "(value)"
Else: MsgBox "--" & strval & "(string) <> " & numval & "(value)"
End If
End Sub

kind regards,
Erik

 

[ozNoz]

Very nice. Thank you both.
And while Jacob does indeed explain it well, Aladin goes above and beyond the call of duty with a textboox case study of variable coercion, so hats off to them also.