RANK help entry improvement suggestion

Request For Enhancement, User feedback candidates for wiki
Post Reply
Hilly Bill
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:41 am

RANK help entry improvement suggestion

Post by Hilly Bill »

Here's what Help says for the RANK function:
RANK
Returns the rank of a number in a sample.
Syntax
RANK(Value; Data; Type)
Value is the value, whose rank is to be determined.
Data is the array or range of data in the sample.
Type (optional) is the sequence order.
Type = 0 means descending from the last item of the array to the first (this is the default),
Type = 1 means ascending from the first item of the range to the last.
My concern is with the description of Type. "[D]escending from the last item...to the first" implies that the smallest item is at the top of the list. "[A]scending from the first item...to the last" implies that the smallest item is at the top of the list. Perhaps a rewrite is in order? May I suggest:
Type = 0 means descending from the first item of the range to the last (this is the default).
Type = 1 means ascending from the first item of the range to the last.
That makes a lot more sense to me, and appears to be consistent with the actual function output. One could wish that the default was the reverse...
Last edited by MrProgrammer on Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Moved from Calc forum to User Experience
OpenOffice 4.1.9
Windows 10.0.1942
Post Reply