Biff, I agree that it's woefully inadequate for expert users. But ti's still
not a bad reference for the average user. As to your example, Excel is
coercing the text to a date, but it's probably not the preferred way to
present the argument. You could make the same complaint about VBA, where a 0
is coerced to a FALSE and vice versa, depending on the context.

As far as trying to guess what Harlan is pointing out is concerned, he's
usually so far ahead of me that I can't presume to know. <g
__________________________________________________ _________________________

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
I think Harlan's point is this:

[not] providing complete documentation of Excel functions.

And I agree.

Here's a perfect example.

I replied to a post just a few posts above this one about the number of
days in a month.

From the link your provided on the MONTH function:
**********
MONTH(serial_number)

Serial_number is the date of the month you are trying to find. Dates
should be entered by using the DATE function, or as results of other
formulas or functions. For example, use DATE(2008,5,23) for the 23rd day
of May, 2008. Problems can occur if dates are entered as text.

**********

A1 = June

=MONTH(A1&1) = 6

A1 is clearly not a date or date_serial_number. Using the & concatenation
operator further forces the string argument as TEXT. Yet the formula
returns the correct result. No mention of this behavior whatsoever in the
MONTH function documentation. In fact, it warns you about entering TEXT,
but:

=MONTH("6/1/2007") = 6

I think that's what Harlan's pointing out.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Vasant Nanavati" <vasantn AT aol DOT com wrote in message
...
I hate to disagree with you, Harlan. But while this is not perfect, it's a
fairly decent worksheet function reference:

http://office.microsoft.com/assistan...&respos=7&rt=2

Unfortunately when you search Help for "Worksheet Functions," it's the
7th item displayed.
__________________________________________________ ________________________

"Harlan Grove" wrote in message
...
"fgrose" wrote...
...
I wish I could find documentation of this expression syntax in the Excel
Help or function reference, even as an example. Have I missed it?

If not, where would l look for this type of expression syntax for Excel?

Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't seem to be interested in providing
complete documentation of Excel functions. These newsgroups are the
closest thing you'll find to providing such documentation, but they're
somewhat disorganized. Even so, searching the Google Groups archive is
the best way to find the most detailed explanation of how Excel's
functions work.