[discuss] Will Calc Match This?

[Dave Barton]

I have just been reading an article about M$ Office 12, which states:

Q
Excel 12 has beefed up capacity for power users (worksheets can now
handle up to 1 million rows and 16,000 columns).
/Q

OK I accept and agree with the argument that, if you have a worksheet
this size you should be using a database.

However, it does bring 2 thoughts to mind:

1. Assuming Calc will be able to handle M$'s perverted form of XML, will
it be able to handle sheets of this size?

2. If not, the users list will probably be flooded with posts saying in
Excel I can have this many ... blah, blah, blah.

Does anyone here know if any development is under way to add this
capacity to Calc?

Dave


-
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [discuss] Will Calc Match This?

[Jonathon Blake]

Dave wrote:

 1 million rows and up to 16 000 columns

A fully populated worksheet of that size would require 96 768 GB RAM,
just to load.

 1. Assuming Calc will be able to handle M$'s perverted form of XML, will it 
 be able to handle sheets of this size?

The more pertinent question is if Excel will be able to handle a sheet
that is that big.

15 625 vertical sheets
63 horizontal sheets.

Total of  984 375 sheets.   Calc _might_ not be able to handle it.  Do
you have enough RAM?  Do you have a large enough hard drive?   Are you
using very fast chips?

These are requirements that were/are the purview of supercomputers,
before Beowulf clusters took center stage.

 2. If not, the users list will probably be flooded with posts saying in 
 Excel I can have this many ... blah, blah, blah.

That might happen.  If so, then either educate people in how to use
databases, and how to use spreadsheets, or go to Plan B.

 Does anyone here know if any development is under way to add this capacity to 
 Calc?

This might be an interesting problem

Write a function/plugin/macro that makes the user think that they are
using Calc, but in fact are using the dBase clone.  [Circa 1994, there
was a spreadsheet for Dos, that could have an infinite number of rows,
columns, and pages.  The limiting factor was the amount of disk space
on your system. ]

Plan B

Record: Cell
Field zero:  Cell Number
Field one: Page Number
Field two:  Column Number
Field three:  Row Number
Field four: Cell Value
field five: Cell Value Type
Field six: Cell Formula
Field seven:  Cell Links From.
Field eight: Cell Links To.

Create records as needed.  Keep an index of all fields.

Whilst slower than Excel, it provides for more pages, columns, and
rows than Excel proposes.  [And suffers from the same issue: How much
RAM, and disk space does your system have.]

Wondering if being able to advertise a spreadsheet that can handle 1
000 000 000 000 000 000 000 pages, with 1 000 000 000 000 000  000 000
rows, and 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 columns is going to win any
brownie points anywhere?

xan

jonathon
--
Ethical conduct is a vice.
Corrupt conduct is a virtue.

Motto of Nacarima.