Statistical Challenge

[Meg]

Code:

FUNCTION ceiling% (n%, s%)
  'this function returns the value of n% rounded UP to the nearest
  'multiple of s%

  IF SGN(n%) = -1 AND SGN(s%) = -1 THEN '*** BOTH NEGATIVE ***
    c% = (n% \ s%) * s%
  ELSEIF SGN(n%) = -1 * SGN(s%) THEN '*** 1 NEGATIVE, 1 POSITIVE ***
    'return an error here.
    'I'm not sure what the proper code for this is...
  ELSE '*** BOTH POSITIVE ***
    c% = ((n% \ s%) + 1) * s%
  END IF

  ceiling% = c%
END FUNCTION

*peace*

Meg.

p.s. not sure what that error code is, or what you want this function to do if 0 is passed as one of the values.. but the two calculations are correct, i believe.

[oracle]

This one's better. It works for decimals too (took me ages!

Code:

FUNCTION ceiling (n, c)
IF n = 0 THEN ceiling = 0: EXIT FUNCTION
IF n / c = n \ c THEN ceiling = n: EXIT FUNCTION
n$ = STR$(n)
t$ = RIGHT$(n$, 2)
t = VAL(t$)
IF t = .5 THEN n = n + .1
ce = INT(n - n MOD c + c + .5)
IF (ce - n - c) < .5 AND (ce - n - c) > 0 THEN ce = ce - c
ceiling = ce
END FUNCTION

Can someone optimise it please?

[Neo]

If I knew what you were trying to do I would 8)

[oracle]

Heh...But is there a quicker way to extract the last two characters out of a numerical string?

Also, can someone test it for special cases that make the formula invalid?

[Agamemnus]

I didn't know you were going with decimals too.

try ceiling (0,0)? or ceiling (5,-5)? or ceiling(0,1)? ceiling (1,0)?

[oracle]

ceiling(0, 0) works OK because of the first IF statement (returns 0), but the actual function in gnumeric (a spreadsheet compatible with excel) returns a #num! error. Do you think mine should too?

ceiling(5, -5) returns 5, which is in theory 5 rounded up to a multiple of -5, but I think that should return an error instead. What about anyone else?

ceiling (0,1) returns 0, which is just like the actual function, but don't you think that should return 1 instead?

ceiling(1,0) was a good one, it froze my Linux based QBasic :wink: . I fixed this by checking if the significance was 0, and returning error code 5 if it did. (Illegal function call).

Thanks for your help, agamemnus.