Formula options for workbook extraction

Formula options for workbook extraction

This page explains how formula-related options behave when you run workbook-style table reads through bus data.

Use this page when you need to run commands and verify workbook formula outputs.

What the options do

--formula enables formula evaluation when formula-enabled fields are declared in a beside-the-table schema. The schema must live beside the source table as <table>.schema.json; fields that should be evaluated declare formula metadata in that schema before the command is run.

--formula-source includes the formula source text in output together with evaluated values.

--formula-dialect <name> selects a source profile (spreadsheet, excel_like, or sheets_like) when source expression syntax differs. The default is spreadsheet. Use excel_like for Excel-style source quirks and sheets_like for Google Sheets-style source quirks.

--decimal-sep <char> and --thousands-sep <char> control locale parsing and output normalization for numeric values.

Typical command

Replace source.csv with the workbook/table export you are reading. Replace A1:C10 with the cell range that contains the table in that source.

bus data table workbook source.csv A1:C10 \
  --formula \
  --decimal-sep "," \
  --thousands-sep " " \
  -f tsv

Expected results

When --formula is active and schema metadata enables formulas, formula cells output evaluated values. Without schema metadata or without --formula, formula evaluation is not applied.

When locale flags are set, locale-formatted numbers are normalized in output to canonical decimal form.

Quick verification checklist

  1. Formula cells return evaluated values when --formula is enabled.
  2. --formula-source adds source expressions without removing evaluated output.
  3. Locale-formatted values normalize as expected with separator flags.
  4. Re-running the same command on unchanged input returns the same output.

Using from .bus files

# same as: bus data table workbook source.csv A1:C10 --formula -f tsv
data table workbook source.csv A1:C10 --formula -f tsv

← bus-bfl Module CLI reference bus-accounts →

Sources