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Rabarberski
Rabarberski

Reputation: 24922

Why can we use division operator in Excel's SUMPRODUCT(), but not in other functions?

I was surprised to find that in Excel you can divide a range in the SUMPRODUCT function (per this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13650170/50899). Note that this doesn't require the use of array formulas (i.e, pressing ctrl+shift+enter is not necesary)

 =SUMPRODUCT(1/A1:A3, B1:B3)           <= note the division operator

But why can you NOT do it for, e.g., =SUM(1/A1:A3)?
To which functions can it be applied?
And what is the name of this feature?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1637

Answers (1)

Charles Williams
Charles Williams

Reputation: 23520

SUMPRODUCT does array calculations under the covers, but SUM does not.
Array entering {SUM(A1:A3/10)} gives the same answer as SUMPRODUCT(A1:A3/10) but SUMPRODUCT does not need array entering because Excel already knows that its an array processing function.

Upvotes: 2

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