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Thanks for the new one but I figured out that somehow the cell formatting had turned the results white so I couldn't see it. I formatted all the cells for black and the first one is working great just needed to create a lookup table at the bottom of the sheet. Thought I figured out just one worked fine. Thanks again. Buy the way how and what is the upside down Y symbol? Can't seem to find it in any of the lists and have no idea how to create it on the keyboard.PeterBartholomew1
It is the Greek lower-case letter lambda. You can find it in the Character Map tool that comes with Windows. You can select it there and copy it, then paste it into your application.
For Excel I use Insert/Symbol or, more usually, Autocorrect which I have set to convert \lambda into λ. The \lambda also works without Autocorrect in the Word equation editor.
Why do I use it? I have found it helpful to be able to discriminate between arrays variables and Lambda variables, especially when they are being passed as parameters to another Lambda function.
Another place where identifying lambda functions is useful, is to discriminate between a built-in function and its lambda-ized equivalent, e.g.
= BYROW(array, SUMλ)
= BYCOL(array, SUMλ)
where SUMλ is defined to be
= LAMBDA(x, SUM(x))
Of course, if you already have naming conventions, it would be more important to stay consistent with those. For example Fn_SUM might suit you better and is comprised solely of keyboard characters.
I also introduced ϑ for thunks to remind myself that
arrayϑ
= Thunkλ(array)
where
Thunkλ
= LAMBDA(x, LAMBDA(x))
can be reversed using
array
= arrayϑ()
BTW. I also have borrowed the use of subscript characters x_2 from equation editor to create x₂ without clashing with the 14 billion Excel default cell references, none of which would I touch with a barge pole! Given that I have a problem of even convincing spreadsheet users that the formulas I offer are even anything to do with Excel, you could argue that the use of 'exotic' notation can only exacerbate the problem.
HansVogelaar PeterBartholomew1
Is it also available to Mac users? And even if it is available, what advantage is there in using the character? I have been able to use LAMBDA to create complete user-defined functions, even nesting user-defined functions within user-defined functions. Haven't bothered with searching for the greek character, because it hasn't seemed necessary. That's why I'm asking.
