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Formula

Many widgets available to the user to build their dashboard support custom formula defined by the user.

Here is the full documentation of the supported syntax.

Expression Syntax

The parser accepts a pretty basic grammar. It's similar to normal JavaScript expressions, but is more math-oriented. For example, the ^ operator is exponentiation, not xor.

Operator Precedence

Operator Associativity Description
(...) None Grouping
f(), x.y, a[i] Left Function call, property access, array indexing
! Left Factorial
^ Right Exponentiation
+, -, not, sqrt, etc. Right Unary prefix operators (see below for the full list)
*, /, % Left Multiplication, division, remainder
+, -, || Left Addition, subtraction, array/list concatenation
==, !=, >=, <=, >, <, in Left Equals, not equals, etc. "in" means "is the left operand included in the right array operand?"
and Left Logical AND
or Left Logical OR
x ? y : z Right Ternary conditional (if x then y else z)
; Left Expression separator

Unary operators

The parser has several built-in "functions" that are actually unary operators. The primary difference between these and functions are that they can only accept exactly one argument, and parentheses are optional. With parentheses, they have the same precedence as function calls, but without parentheses, they keep their normal precedence (just below ^). For example, sin(x)^2 is equivalent to (sin x)^2, and sin x^2 is equivalent to sin(x^2).

The unary + and - operators are an exception, and always have their normal precedence.

Operator Description
-x Negation
+x Unary plus. This converts it's operand to a number, but has no other effect.
x! Factorial (x _ (x-1) _ (x-2) _ … _ 2 * 1). gamma(x + 1) for non-integers.
abs x Absolute value (magnitude) of x
acos x Arc cosine of x (in radians)
acosh x Hyperbolic arc cosine of x (in radians)
asin x Arc sine of x (in radians)
asinh x Hyperbolic arc sine of x (in radians)
atan x Arc tangent of x (in radians)
atanh x Hyperbolic arc tangent of x (in radians)
cbrt x Cube root of x
ceil x Ceiling of x — the smallest integer that’s >= x
cos x Cosine of x (x is in radians)
cosh x Hyperbolic cosine of x (x is in radians)
exp x e^x (exponential/antilogarithm function with base e)
expm1 x e^x - 1
floor x Floor of x — the largest integer that’s <= x
length x String or array length of x
ln x Natural logarithm of x
log x Natural logarithm of x (synonym for ln, not base-10)
log10 x Base-10 logarithm of x
log2 x Base-2 logarithm of x
log1p x Natural logarithm of (1 + x)
not x Logical NOT operator
round x X, rounded to the nearest integer, using "grade-school rounding"
sign x Sign of x (-1, 0, or 1 for negative, zero, or positive respectively)
sin x Sine of x (x is in radians)
sinh x Hyperbolic sine of x (x is in radians)
sqrt x Square root of x. Result is NaN (Not a Number) if x is negative.
tan x Tangent of x (x is in radians)
tanh x Hyperbolic tangent of x (x is in radians)
trunc x Integral part of a X, looks like floor(x) unless for negative number

Pre-defined functions

Besides the "operator" functions, there are several other functions.

Function Description
random(n) Get a random number in the range [0, n). If n is zero, or not provided, it defaults to 1.
fac(n) n! (factorial of n: "n _ (n-1) _ (n-2) _ … _ 2 * 1") Deprecated. Use the ! operator instead.
min(a,b,…) Get the smallest (minimum) number in the list.
max(a,b,…) Get the largest (maximum) number in the list.
hypot(a,b) Hypotenuse, i.e. the square root of the sum of squares of its arguments.
pyt(a, b) Alias for hypot.
pow(x, y) Equivalent to x^y. For consistency with JavaScript's Math object.
atan2(y, x) Arc tangent of x/y. i.e. the angle between (0, 0) and (x, y) in radians.
roundTo(x, n) Rounds x to n places after the decimal point.
map(f, a) Array map: Pass each element of a the function f, and return an array of the results.
fold(f, y, a) Array fold: Fold/reduce array a into a single value, y by setting y = f(y, x, index) for each element x of the array.
filter(f, a) Array filter: Return an array containing only the values from a where f(x, index) is true.
indexOf(x, a) Return the first index of string or array a matching the value x, or -1 if not found.
join(sep, a) Concatenate the elements of a, separated by sep.
if(c, a, b) Function form of c ? a : b. Note: This always evaluates both a and b, regardless of whether c is true or not. Use c ? a : b instead if there are side effects, or if evaluating the branches could be expensive.

Array literals

Arrays can be created by including the elements inside square [] brackets, separated by commas. For example:

[ 1, 2, 3, 2+2, 10/2, 3! ]

Constants

The parser also includes a number of pre-defined constants that can be used in expressions. These are shown in the table below:

Constant Description
E Euler's number
PI PI (π)
true Logical true value
false Logical false value