If your 101 data elements were the values that you claim, then the bin
frequencies would be the values that you expect.

Instead, I suspect that your data elements were created by successively
adding 0.1 to the previous value. That algorithm will not produce
exactly the values that you claim, because computers do binary math, and
..1 has no exact binary representation. The result of accumulating these
approximations are that instad of 9.9, you get 9.89999999999998, etc.

In A1:A101, put the formula =(ROW()-1)/10
=FREQUENCY(B$1:B$101,{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10})
returns {11,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10}

In B1 put 0, in B2 put =B1+0.1, and copy the B2 formula and paste over
B3:B101
=FREQUENCY(B$1:B$101,{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10})
returns {11,9,10,10,11,10,10,10,10,10}

The difference is that the formula in A1:A101 avoids accumulating
approximations.

Jerry

Jim wrote:

Perhaps I was not clear in my original posting, but the data is the following
set of 101 data elements: {0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, ..., 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, ... 1.9,
2.0, 2.1, ...,2.9, 3.0, 3.1, ...3.9, 4.0, 4.1, ... 4.9, 5.0, 5.1,...5.9, 6.0,
6.1, ...6.9, 7.0, 7.1,...7.9, 8.0, 8.1,...8.9, 9.0, 9.1,... 9.9, 10.0} and
the bins are {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}. Midpoints is not relevant to the
problem. The problem is that theoretically, the calculated bin frequencies
(beginning with bin 1) should be {11,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10}; instead,
these calculated bin frequencies are {11,9,10,10, 11, 10,10,10,10,10}

"Tushar Mehta" wrote:


Since you don't share the raw data, it is hard to know what the
frequency function is doing wrong. However, it, by *definition*
considers the bin value as the upper bound for the bin and not the mid-
point. So, if that is the problem you allude to, it is an XL design
feature. If it is something else, maybe you can share the data for 1-
to-5 so that it becomes easier to understand how the FREQUENCY function
is getting it wrong.

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta
www.tushar-mehta.com
Excel, PowerPoint, and VBA add-ins, tutorials
Custom MS Office productivity solutions

In article ,
says...

I am using Excel 2002. There is a problem with the frequency function, which
is used for histograms. The frequency counts for some (not all) bins is
incorrect. The case that I learned of in another posting involves 101 data
values: 0, 10, and values in between that are created by using an increment
of 0.1. The frequency value for the first bin is (correctly) 11, and most of
the other bins have the correct frequency (10). However, the bin
representing the interval from 1 to 2 has a frequency of 9, which the bin
representing the interval from 4 to 5 has a frequency of 11! I have also
used the "Better Histrogram" downloadable file for this same problem, but
apparently the "Better Histogram" procedure starts with the Frequency
function, as it ends up with a histogram with the same results. Any
suggestions for correctly calculating all bin frequencies?