On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 3:09 PM Wol <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 13/05/2026 01:20, Benjamin Urban wrote: > > I am seeking suggestions of how a callable (usually output from LAMBDA, > > though I have also implemented other ways of generating them) should be > > displayed in a cell. I know Google Sheets displays an #N/A error (even > > though the cell has a valid non-error value), which, when selected, > > tells you that you need to call the function if you want to see a > > result. I don't know what Excel does, as I don't have Excel. I'm > > thinking that there could be reason to not choose something that could > > potentially be entered as text in a cell (to avoid confusing users), but > > I have no ideas beyond that. Can anyone offer input, or could a Power > > That Be offer a Decision? > > > IME Excel (2016) just displays whatever. That said, Excel also has a > much simpler security model (because I'm running an older, local version ?) > > I've had grief with Google Sheets, but there you have loads of problems > with the fact it's online - do you trust the code you're trying to run, > is it vulnerable to remote changes behind your back, is it somebody > else's code you need permission to, etc etc. > > Do a simple threat analysis. if you think it's safe just run it and > display the result (Excel), or if there are real threats of something > going wrong, give a warning first (Google Sheets). > > Cheers, > Wol > That wasn't what I was asking. My question is referring to a spreadsheet "function" called LAMBDA, which was introduced in Excel in the 2020 version. When entered into a formula, it builds a callable function that can be used by other spreadsheet cells (or called within the same formula). As a function has no natural representation as text, my question was what to display in the cell if the result is such a function. My question was not at all about security; LAMBDA and other callables don't introduce any new security implications in spreadsheets, that weren't already there. Ben
