In several of Claris products you can produce algebraic calculations. While it is not usually necessary for us to know how to come up with the correct calculations, it is helpful to know how they can be set up.
VARIABLES: In products without scripting languages, there are no ways to describe a variable as such. In other words, you can't 'solve for X' in an equation like '3*X^2 - 6*X + 2.' What you can do is to describe a holder, like a field in FileMaker or a cell in a spreadsheet to take the place of the X. The above equation could be used as written in FileMaker if you have a number field called 'X" or in a spreadsheet written as '3*A1^2 - 6*A1 + 2,' where your variable is the number entered in field X in FileMaker or in cell A1 in the spreadsheet.
EXPONENTS: Shorthand for an exponent on a Macintosh is the carat (^) character. The example '3*X^2 - 6*X + 2' would read 'Three X squared minus six X plus 2.'
OPERATORS: Note that while in algebraic writing you can have '3X,' while in our programs this expression will return an error message. It is not understood that when you have two components of an expression without an operator between them, they will be multiplied. Therefore you would have to write '3 * X' to get the same result.
The algebraic expression '3X^2 - 6X + 2' would have to be written '3 * X^2 - 6 * X + 2.'