Cell types in the spreadsheet

Every cell in the OctoMY spreadsheet holds a number. Most of the time that is all you need to know — type 42, type =A1 * 3, and the sheet does the arithmetic.

Some cells need to hold more than one number: a position, a colour, a direction. This page explains when that happens, when the sheet works it out for you, and how to say so explicitly when it cannot.

The short version


A cell is a decimal number unless something says otherwise	you never have to declare anything
A formula that produces several numbers makes the cell hold several	`=vec3(1, 2, 3)` gives you a three-component cell
You can force a cell's type by right-clicking it	for cells that must be a vector before anything writes to them

Cells are numbers by default

Type a value or a formula and you get a decimal number. There is no type to pick and no property to set:

A1 = 5
A2 = =A1 * 3      → 15
A3 = =A1 + A2     → 20

This is the case you will be in almost all of the time.

Some formulas produce several numbers at once

A few functions return a group of numbers rather than a single one. The most common is vec3, which bundles three:

A1 = 5
A4 = =vec3(A1, A1 * 2, A1 * 3)     → (5, 10, 15)

You did not tell the sheet that A4 holds three numbers. It worked that out from the formula, the same way it works out that =A1 * 3 holds one. The cell then shows all three components instead of a single value.

A sheet where one formula produced a three-component cell, with scalar cells around it

This matters most when you are driving something that wants three numbers — a position, a rotation, an RGB colour. You write the formula that produces them and the cell carries them.

Pro Tip

Where the sheet cannot work out what a formula produces, the cell stays a plain number. You will not get a surprising type from an ambiguous formula.

Forcing a cell's type

Inference works from the formula, so it can only help once a formula exists. A cell that has to hold three numbers before anything writes to it — an input you plan to drive from a slider, for instance — needs to be told.

Right-click the cell and pick a type:

The right-click type menu on a selected cell

Infer is the default and means "work it out from the formula" — that is the behaviour described above.
Picking anything else fixes the cell to that type.
The menu acts on everything you have selected, not just the cell under the pointer. Select a column, right-click, pick a type, and the whole column is set.

If the cells you selected already disagree about their type, nothing is ticked — the menu is not going to pretend the first one speaks for the rest.

What an override actually does

Forcing a type wraps your formula in a conversion. Setting a cell to vec3 when its formula is =A1 gives you vec3(A1), which spreads the single value across all three components:

A1 = 2
B1 = =A1        with B1 forced to vec3     → (2, 2, 2)

Narrowing works too, and follows the language's own rule — forcing a vec3 formula down to a plain number keeps the first component:

C1 = =vec3(1, 2, 3)     forced to a number     → 1

Some conversions have no meaning at all. Forcing a two-component formula up to four components is one of them: there is no rule that says what the missing two should be, so the cell reports an error rather than inventing them.

When a formula is refused

If a formula cannot be compiled, the error appears on the cell that caused it — not as a sheet-wide banner, and not silently:

A refused formula, with the error on the cell that caused it

Cells that depend on a broken cell are not each marked as broken; the first error is the one worth showing you.

A circular reference — A1 reading B1 while B1 reads A1 — marks every cell in the loop, because a circular reference is a property of the set rather than of any one of them. If what you actually want is a cell that reads its own value from the previous frame, that is a different thing and it is spelled differently: see previous-frame values.