Overstepping the Column Formula mark with Sum, Count, Average

[ChrisGreaves]

I may be expecting too much from Everything. If so, then that's a good sign. It means that I am getting used to a versatile and powerful tool for managing files.

So today I ventured into Column Formulas (thanks Phlashman and armed with a modicum of success I wondered why there was no Average function (well, that I could find). Nothing stops me; I can do it with Sum divided by Count. I used Search, Picture and then :-

Code: Select all

T:\Greaves\Training\Everything\Tutorial\ column1:=sum:($width) addcolumn:column1

ColumnFormulas_06.png (70.23 KiB) Viewed 778 times

Now it can be argued that the Sum of Widths of Pictures is a meaningless or useless concept, but I can argue NOT!
The data in the width column is numeric data, no matter what it represents, and if it is numeric data then I should be able to Sum it and Average it and do any numeric operation on it.

I can't!

So where, please, have I strayed from the path?

(1) It seems reasonable to me to Sum a set of 386 numeric data
(2) Perhaps I am missing a function OfTheColumn(), and these Excel-like functions operate solely on an individual row in the Result List

I have an argument up my sleeve that makes it logical to associate the average of a set with each member of the set (for example to rate each member of the set against the entire population), but I suspect that I took a wrong turn way, way back.

And I would appreciate any guidance.
Thanks, Chris

[Phlashman]

Change column1:=sum:($width) to column1=sum($width:) , the colon placement.

Note that as there is only one width per file, column sum($width:) is the same as $width: which you already have a column for?

See viewtopic.php?f=12&t=11949

[ChrisGreaves]

Change column1:=sum:($width) to column1=sum($width:) , the colon placement.
Note that as there is only one width per file, column sum($width:) is the same as $width: which you already have a column for?
See viewtopic.php?f=12&t=11949

Thank you Phlashman. I had mis-interpreted the syntax.

My exercise/learning goal was to flag files as being above or below average in some numeric characteristic.
I chose "width" of "pictures" because it offers a numeric value. I reason that any numeric characteristic will suffice - size, bit-rate etc for my learning process

There being no Average function I thought to improve my skills by determining the Total or Sum of the numeric characteristic and then dividing that Sum by the Count of objects.
This may be over-ambitious ...

Yes, I have a column for Width. That was to be the source data for Sum (a second albeit interim column) and then Average (another interim column) from which my target column "Above/Below"(average).

Cheers, Chris