{ "category": "Information functions", "display_name": "INFO", "entry_kind": "built_in_function", "eval_api": { "method": "POST", "url": "https://handbook.dnacalc.com/api/eval" }, "function_id": "FUNC.INFO", "implementation_state": { "answer_bank": null, "detail": "Recorded: 21 workbook cells.", "dnacalc_commit": "9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87", "in_catalogue": true, "state": "matches", "state_label": "Matches every recorded Excel answer", "summary": "Matches all 21 recorded answers", "workbook_corpus": { "cells": 21, "matched": 21 } }, "implementations": [ { "commit": "9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87", "flavour": "excel-compatibility-candidate", "language": "Rust", "name": "CalcFunc", "own_code": [ "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc/blob/9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87/crates/calc-func/src/catalogue/host_facts.rs#L448-L448" ], "repository": "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc", "shared_code": [ "catalogue/host_facts::first_cell", "catalogue/host_facts::cell_value", "catalogue/host_facts::column_letters", "catalogue/host_facts::facts", "catalogue/host_facts::qualified_sheet", "catalogue/host_facts::cell", "catalogue/host_facts::s_number", "catalogue/host_facts::info", "catalogue/host_facts::sheet", "format/cell_info::sections", "format/cell_info::tokens", "format/cell_info::is_date_time", "format/cell_info::date_time_class", "format/cell_info::places", "format/cell_info::number_class", "format/cell_info::classify", "ported/a1_refs::split_prefix", "ported/a1_refs::parse_cell_token", "ported/a1_refs::parse_column_token", "ported/a1_refs::parse_row_token", "ported/a1_refs::parse_a1_reference", "ported/address::address_name_character", "ported/address::address_name_is_reference", "ported/address::quote_sheet_text_if_needed" ], "source": "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc/blob/9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87/crates/calc-func/src/catalogue/host_facts.rs#L448-L448", "state": "matches", "suite": null, "summary": "Matches all 21 recorded answers" } ], "json_url": "https://handbook.dnacalc.com/api/functions/FUNC.INFO.json", "name": "INFO", "notes": [], "schema": "efh.function-reference/v1", "section_order": [ "what-it-does", "try-it", "quirks", "how-to-implement", "version-differences", "alternatives" ], "sections": { "alternatives": "\n### Relationships\n\n\n- **`CELL`** is the sibling one level down: same category, same host dependence, same\n cannot-evaluate-without-Excel property, but its subject is a cell rather than the application.\n Between them they are the two functions in this assignment for which the Handbook can hold no\n computed answers at all.\n- **`SHEETS()`** with no argument counts sheets in the current workbook; `INFO(\"numfile\")` counts\n them across every open workbook. Confusing the two is easy and the difference only shows up\n when a second file is open.\n- **`CELL(\"filename\", …)`** is the usual route to the workbook path, and is generally preferred\n over `INFO(\"directory\")` because it names the file rather than the startup folder.\n- **`NOW()` and `TODAY()`** are the other functions whose answers come from the environment\n rather than from arguments, but they are cleanly volatile in a way the dependency graph\n understands; `INFO`'s volatility is contextual and messier.\n- **`ISFORMULA`, `SHEET`, `SHEETS`, `FORMULATEXT`** are the other host-backed members of the\n Information category, all of which at least take a reference.\n\n\n", "how-to-implement": "\n### Notes for implementers\n\n\n1. **`INFO` must be a declared host query with an explicit no-host failure.** There is no\n correct local answer. Synthesising `\"release\"` or `\"osversion\"` from the runtime the engine\n happens to be running on produces a plausible lie.\n2. **Keep the withdrawn names in the parser, routed to the host.** Short-circuiting them to\n `#N/A` in the function layer hard-codes a version fact into a version-independent layer, and\n it is the host that knows whether it still supports them.\n3. **The argument is text despite being called `type_num`.** Do not add a numeric path.\n4. **Any recorded result must carry platform, build and locale.** `INFO`'s outputs are the very\n axes the Handbook's claim rules require claims to be scoped by\n ([claim language and honesty](../model/06-claim-language.md)), so an unscoped `INFO`\n expectation is meaningless by construction.\n5. **Do not cache.** `\"recalc\"`, `\"numfile\"` and `\"origin\"` can all change without any workbook\n edit.\n\n\n", "quirks": "\n### Result and edge cases\n\n\nThe return kind depends on the name: `Text` for `\"directory\"`, `\"origin\"`, `\"osversion\"`,\n`\"recalc\"`, `\"release\"` and `\"system\"`; `Number` for `\"numfile\"`.\n\n- **`\"origin\"` is reference-style dependent.** Its documented result differs between A1 and R1C1\n reference styles, and it is scoped to the top-left *visible* cell — so scrolling the window\n changes it. This is the purest volatility on the page: no data changed, no formula changed, the\n answer moved because the user scrolled.\n- **`\"numfile\"` counts worksheets across all open workbooks**, not sheets in the current one.\n Opening an unrelated file changes it.\n- **`\"recalc\"` reports application state** that the user can toggle from the ribbon.\n- **`\"system\"` returns `\"mac\"` or `\"pcdos\"`** — the second string is a fossil, and any workbook\n branching on it is branching on 1980s vocabulary.\n- **The three withdrawn names return `#N/A`.**\n- **Cross-platform and cross-version divergence is the normal case, not the exception.** Every\n answer this function gives is a property of the environment, so two machines are *expected* to\n disagree. A test suite for `INFO` cannot have fixed expected values; it can only have\n invariants (e.g. `\"recalc\"` is one of two strings) and per-environment recordings.\n- **Security posture.** `\"directory\"`, `\"osversion\"` and `\"release\"` expose local environment\n detail into cell values, which then travel with the file. That is worth knowing before putting\n `INFO` into a shared workbook.\n\n\n\n### Errors\n\n\nMicrosoft's page documents `#N/A` for the three withdrawn names. The Handbook has read the\n`type_text` table and the removal note and does not have a further documented error table to\nreproduce.\n\n- an unrecognised `type_num` name — `#VALUE!`\n- an arity failure (zero arguments, or two) — `#VALUE!`\n- no host available — the call is refused rather than answered\n- a host that recognises the name but cannot answer it — `#VALUE!`\n\n\n", "sources": "- Microsoft, \"INFO function\" —\n .\n Read for this page: the full `type_text` table verbatim, the note that `\"memavail\"`,\n `\"memused\"` and `\"totmem\"` are no longer supported and return `#N/A`, the statement that\n `INFO` is unavailable in Excel Web App, and the reference-style dependence of `\"origin\"`.\n- Handbook, [the call pipeline](../model/03-call-pipeline.md) — host-side adaptation as an\n engine obligation and the caller-aware function class.\n- Handbook, [the execution context](../model/04-execution-context.md) — the application and\n workbook state a host query reads.\n- Handbook, [version axes](../model/05-version-axes.md) — why a result that *is* the version\n needs the version recorded around it.\n- Handbook, [claim language and honesty](../model/06-claim-language.md) — the scoping rules that\n make an unscoped `INFO` expectation meaningless.\n\n\n", "version-differences": "No comparison between specific Excel builds is recorded here yet. This does not establish that all builds behave alike.", "what-it-does": "\n`INFO(type_num)` returns one fact about the running Excel environment, selected by name.\n\nIts subject is not a value, not a cell and not a workbook — it is the **application and the\nmachine it is running on**. That makes it the most host-dependent function in the worksheet\nsurface, and it is declared accordingly: `HostInteractionClass::WorkbookState`,\n`FecDependencyProfile::Composite`, `VolatilityClass::VolatileContextual`,\n`ThreadSafetyClass::HostSerialized`.\n\nMicrosoft's published `type_text` table, verbatim:\n\n| `Type_text` | Returns |\n|---|---|\n| `\"directory\"` | Path of the current directory or folder from Excel startup option |\n| `\"numfile\"` | Number of worksheets in the open workbooks |\n| `\"origin\"` | Absolute cell reference of top-left visible cell (Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility) |\n| `\"osversion\"` | Current operating system version as text |\n| `\"recalc\"` | Current recalculation mode: \"Automatic\" or \"Manual\" |\n| `\"release\"` | Version of Microsoft Excel as text |\n| `\"system\"` | Operating environment name: \"mac\" or \"pcdos\" |\n\nTwo further documented facts sit alongside that table and are as important as the table itself:\n\n1. **Three names were removed.** `\"memavail\"`, `\"memused\"` and `\"totmem\"` are no longer\n supported and return `#N/A`. They reported memory figures in earlier Excel versions. A\n workbook written before the removal still parses and now silently returns errors — one of the\n cleanest examples in Excel of a function whose *domain* shrank across versions.\n2. **`INFO` is unavailable in Excel Web App.** The function is a platform-availability boundary,\n not merely a platform-varying answer.\n\n\n### Arguments\n\n\n`type_num` — required, exactly one. The published signature is `INFO(type_num)`, and the name is\na historical misnomer: the argument is **text**, not a number. Microsoft's own table column is\nheaded `Type_text`.\n\nIt is coerced to text and matched case-insensitively after trimming, so `\"RECALC\"` and\n`\" recalc \"` are the same request. A name outside the recognised set is a failure, not a null\nresult.\n\nThere is no second argument. Unlike `CELL`, `INFO` has no reference position at all — there is\nnothing to point it at.\n\n\n" }, "signature": { "display": "INFO(type_text)", "parameters": [ { "description": null, "name": "type_text", "optional": false, "repeats": false } ], "trailing_repeats": false }, "sources": { "metadata": { "admission": { "label": "implemented", "reason": null }, "arity": { "max": 1, "min": 1 }, "category": "Information functions", "classification": { "arg_preparation_profile": "ValuesOnlyPreAdapter", "coercion_lift_profile": "Custom", "determinism_class": "Deterministic", "error_collapse_profile": "None", "fec_dependency_profile": "Composite", "host_interaction_class": "WorkbookState", "kernel_signature_class": "Custom", "rich_value_usage": "RichBlind", "surface_fec_dependency_profile": "Composite", "thread_safety_class": "HostSerialized", "volatility_class": "VolatileContextual" }, "descriptions": { "long": null, "short": "A fact about the environment Excel runs in, such as the version or the system", "short_source": "dna-calc-own" }, "docs": { "english_description": "Returns information about the current operating environment", "microsoft_url": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/info-function-725f259a-0e4b-49b3-8b52-58815c69acae" }, "entry_kind": "built_in_function", "localized_family_names": null, "localized_names": [ { "locale": "ar-SA", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "bg-BG", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "cs-CZ", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "da-DK", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "de-DE", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "el-GR", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "en-AU", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "en-GB", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "en-US", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "es-ES", "name": "INFORMACIÓN" }, { "locale": "et-EE", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "fi-FI", "name": "KUVAUS" }, { "locale": "fr-FR", "name": "INFOS" }, { "locale": "he-IL", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "hr-HR", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "hu-HU", "name": "INFÓ" }, { "locale": "id-ID", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "it-IT", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "ja-JP", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "ko-KR", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "lt-LT", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "lv-LV", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "nb-NO", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "nl-NL", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "pl-PL", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "pt-BR", "name": "INFORMAÇÃO" }, { "locale": "pt-PT", "name": "INFORMAÇÕES" }, { "locale": "ro-RO", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "ru-RU", "name": "ИНФОРМ" }, { "locale": "sk-SK", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "sl-SI", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "sr-Latn-RS", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "sv-SE", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "th-TH", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "tr-TR", "name": "BİLGİ" }, { "locale": "uk-UA", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "vi-VN", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "zh-CN", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "zh-HK", "name": "INFO" }, { "locale": "zh-TW", "name": "INFO" } ], "signature": { "display": "INFO(type_text)", "parameters": [ { "description": null, "name": "type_text", "optional": false, "repeats": false } ], "trailing_repeats": false }, "surface_name": "INFO", "version_marker": null, "xlcall": { "code": "244", "symbol": "xlfInfo" } }, "microsoft": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/info-function-725f259a-0e4b-49b3-8b52-58815c69acae" }, "try_it": { "formula": "=INFO(\"numfile\")" }, "url": "https://handbook.dnacalc.com/functions/INFO.html", "variants": [], "versions": [] }