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Bug 588392 - Extraction of an odd root on a negative number fails
Extraction of an odd root on a negative number fails
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 509965
Product: Gnumeric
Classification: Applications
Component: Analytics
1.9.x
Other All
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Morten Welinder
Jody Goldberg
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2009-07-12 17:53 UTC by Nihil Baxter
Modified: 2009-07-13 03:13 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Description Nihil Baxter 2009-07-12 17:53:31 UTC 
Please describe the problem:
(Gnumeric 1.9.9 and older versions)

The extraction of an odd root for a negative number is defined mathematically but gnumeric does not support it. So I am not sure if I should call it bug or missing feature. 
Example: =(-27)^(1/3)=-3 but gnumeric fails and the result is "#ZAHL!"

OpenOffice includes this bug, too but Excel can handle this expression.

Steps to reproduce:
1. 
2. 
3. 


Actual results:


Expected results:


Does this happen every time?


Other information:
Comment 1 Andreas J. Guelzow 2009-07-13 03:13:02 UTC 
1/3 is not representable in a computer. The result of calculating 1/3 is threrefor the closest representable number to 1/3. As a consequence(-27)^(1/3) is _not_ the 3rd root of (-27).

This is not a bug! 

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 509965 ***