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From: citdem@UAVAX0.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Improv question
Message-ID: <00948A1A.B4FADFA0@UAVAX0.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU>
Date: 15 May 91 01:53:06 GMT
Reply-To: citdem@UAVAX0.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
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Organization: University of Arizona
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I've just started exploring Improv.  Is there a way to sum just the negative
values in a column of mixed positive and negative numbers WITHOUT creating
a "pointer" column (e.g. pointer cell contains "1" if corresponding data
cell has a positve number, 0 otherwise. and use SELECTSUM(DATA,POINTER,0))
It would be nice if the SELECT functions allowed conditional type statements
instead of literal values: imagine no pointer column and 
SELECTSUM(DATA,DATA,[CELL_VALUE]<0).  (This is of interest because I have
a situation where I don't know the ultimate number of data columns (as
compared to description/date columns) and data rows (as compared to 3 total
rows: total of positives in column, total of negatives in column, GROUPSUM(
columm).)  Any suggestions?  (Maybe when Lotus releases the API, I can
write my own SELECTSUM_NEGS function.  Anybody heard anything on the official
release of the API?)

Don McCollam  (citdem@uavax0.ccit.arizona.edu - ASCII responses only, please)