MINA Function (Gnumeric)

• Introduced: Gnumeric 0.27 release notes explicitly record its addition.
• Supported in: Gnumeric 1.12.62; no retirement is established.
• Scope: Desktop Gnumeric with its Statistics plugin. English comma-separated formulas are shown.
• Checked: October 14, 2026. The tables and named advanced check use 1.12.57 ssconvert. Current 1.12.62 source was inspected; that release was not executed.

MINA returns the least included value after logical TRUE becomes one, FALSE becomes zero and referenced text becomes zero. It compares ordinary signed numerical values, not absolute magnitudes. Versioned function help.

=MINA(value1[,value2,...])

value1 and further arguments accept values or ranges. The typed dataset distinguishes numeric values, logical values, text and genuine blanks.

Brackets denote optional additional arguments; do not type them. Current implementation.

Enter F2:F4 as numbers 2,4,6 and N2:N4 as numbers −2,−4,−6. Enter the mixed column exactly as follows:

F5 is also genuinely empty. Prefix an entered numeric-looking text value with an apostrophe if needed; the apostrophe is an entry marker, not part of the stored value.

The positive numeric range F2:F4 contains 2,4,6, so =MINA(F2:F4) = 2. The native advanced formula =MINA(F2:F4,H6) gives 0, because the text label “pending” is included as zero. That zero is not an observed minimum measurement.

This is useful only if your data model intentionally assigns zero to such labels. For a measurement column, choose a numeric-only minimum or report the invalid text separately. A real FALSE observation also contributes zero and can legitimately become the minimum in a deliberately logical dataset.

For negative values −2,−4,−6, the minimum is −6, not −2. Adding a zero-valued label does not change that minimum, although the same label would change the minimum of an all-positive dataset. The effect depends on the data, not on whether a label seems harmless.

MINA returns zero when no values contribute. Thus an empty range and a range whose genuine minimum is zero can produce the same numerical output. If completeness matters, retain a separate count or presence check rather than treating the minimum as proof that data existed.

The older callback includes all strings as zero. The current callback adds COLLECT_STRINGS_DIRECT_COMBO2; the current collector tries to parse direct strings as numbers and reports #VALUE! when parsing fails. Referenced strings still follow the zero-string rule.

No exact first release for this conversion change is asserted. These are English numeric-string examples, not tests of other locales or date-like strings.

Errors are propagated: MINA(1/0,2) yields #DIV/0!. Blank references are ignored; referenced text is zero even when it spells a number. The direct text “8” produces zero in the tested 1.12.57 build, but the current-source rule differs. The version-specific comparison below is important when formulas contain literal strings.

F5 is an actually empty cell. Errors below are the tested build’s results, not zero-valued mathematical answers.

• Current worksheet implementation
• Tested-version worksheet implementation
• Current empty-set helper

The retained workbook’s stale SUM cache and uncached SUM both recalculated correctly. Formula identities, typed inputs and native results were inspected. The importer reported unsupported style-extension elements; that warning is retained, and no all-formatting claim is made. GUI entry, other locales and later-release output were not tested.

MIN, MAX, COUNT.