Calculation operators - Windows SharePoint Services

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Calculation operators

Operators specify the type of calculation that you want to perform on the elements of a formula. Lists support three different types of calculation operators: arithmetic, comparison, and text.

Types of operators

Arithmetic operators

To perform basic mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, or multiplication; combine numbers; and produce numeric results, use the following arithmetic operators.

Arithmetic operator	Meaning (Example)
+ (plus sign)	Addition (3+3)
– (minus sign)	Subtraction (3–1) Negation (–1)
* (asterisk)	Multiplication (3*3)
/ (forward slash)	Division (3/3)
% (percent sign)	Percent (20%)
^ (caret)	Exponentiation (3^2)

Comparison operators

You can compare two values with the following operators. When two values are compared by using these operators, the result is a logical value of Yes or No.

Comparison operator	Meaning (Example)
= (equal sign)	Equal to (A=B)
> (greater than sign)	Greater than (A>B)
< (less than sign)	Less than (A<B)
>= (greater than or equal to sign)	Greater than or equal to (A>=B)
<= (less than or equal to sign)	Less than or equal to (A<=B)
<> (not equal to sign)	Not equal to (A<>B)

Text concatenation operator

Use the ampersand (&) to join, or concatenate, one or more text strings to produce a single piece of text.

Text operator	Meaning (Example)
& (ampersand)	Connects, or concatenates, two values to produce one continuous text value ("North"&"wind")

The order in which a list performs operations in a formula

Formulas calculate values in a specific order. A list formula might begin with an equal sign (=). Following the equal sign are the elements to be calculated (the operands), which are separated by calculation operators. Lists calculate the formula from left to right, according to a specific order for each operator in the formula.

Operator precedence

If you combine several operators in a single formula, lists perform the operations in the order shown in the following table. If a formula contains operators with the same precedence — for example, if a formula contains both a multiplication and division operator — lists evaluate the operators from left to right.

Operator	Description
–	Negation (as in –1)
%	Percent
^	Exponentiation
* and /	Multiplication and division
+ and –	Addition and subtraction
&	Connects two strings of text (concatenation)
= < > <= >= <>	Comparison

Use of parentheses

To change the order of evaluation, enclose in parentheses the part of the formula to be calculated first. For example, the following formula produces 11 because a list calculates multiplication before addition. The formula multiplies 2 by 3 and then adds 5 to the result.

=5+2*3

In contrast, if you use parentheses to change the syntax, the list adds 5 and 2 together and then multiplies the result by 3 to produce 21.

=(5+2)*3

In the example below, the parentheses around the first part of the formula force the list to calculate [Cost]+25 first and then divide the result by the sum of the values in columns EC1 and EC2.

=([Cost]+25)/SUM([EC1]+[EC2])