Hi Eike
Nice to hear from you
> > PERCENTRANK
> > "as a percentage of the data set" - this phrase is surely
> > meaningless - needs a rigorous description.
>
> Could you provide one?
PERCENTRANK
Summary: Returns the percentage rank of a value in a sample.
Syntax: PERCENTRANK( NumberSequenceList Data ; Number X [ ;
Integer Significance = 3 ] )
Returns: Number
Constraints:
o COUNT(Data) > 0
o MIN(Data) <= X <= MAX(Data)
o INT(Significance) = Significance; Significance >= 1
Semantics:
o Data is the array or range of data with numeric
values.
o X is the value whose rank is to be determined. (***I
removed/edited a bit here)
o Significance is an value that identifies the number of
significant digits for the returned percentage value. If omitted,
a value of 3 is used (0.xxx).
(***new bit)
For COUNT(Data) > 1, PERCENTRANK returns r / (COUNT(Data) -1),
where r is the rank of X in Data. The rank of the lowest number
in Data is 0, and of the next lowest number 1, and so on. If X is
not in Data, it is assigned a fractional rank proportionately
between the rank of the numbers on either side; specifically, if
X lies between Xa and Xb (Xa < X < Xb), where Xa has rank ra, the
rank of X is calculated as ra + (X-Xa)/(Xb-Xa). In the special
case where COUNT(Data) == 1, the only valid value for X is the
single value in Data, in which case PERCENTRANK returns 1.
Despite its name, PERCENTRANK returns a fraction between 0 and 1
inclusive, rather than a percentage.
=========
Does that help? You'll need to subscript the suffixes for Xa, Xb,
ra of course
I'll look at the other stuff later
David
