Is this possible?

[CodeMonkey775]

I have an spreadsheet type application I am creating, but I ran into some problems with polymorphism. When all of the expressions need to be calculated, I compile it in CodeDom so I can evaluate the expressions. The whole spreadsheet is actually an object with rows and cells, so I pass that into the compiler, run it in my program, and have it calculate the results. Then I display those results in the spreadsheet.
---- The problem is this -----
If I have the expression "R1C1 + 5" in a cell, in code it is actually "Code.Row[1].Cells[1].getResult() + 5". The problem is, R1C1 can either be a cell containing a string, or a cell containing a double. So if R1C1 contains a number, I want getResult() to return a double. If it isn't a number, I want it to return a string (in this scenario it would result in a compile error, so assume R1C1 contains a number.)
Is there anyway that I can store the result in the Cell object and return either a double or a string at runtime depending on what type the result is? I've tried using the primitive type 'object,' but I end up losing precision and the calculations are wrong. Any solution to this problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[zandiago]

So what have you tried? We only provide help if you've come up with something...

[CodeMonkey775]

If I came up with something, I wouldn't be asking you...

[zandiago]

...we dont do homework for pupils...its a rule of the forum...not my rule..

[CodeMonkey775]

Well I'm sorry you are under the misunderstanding that this is for academics. This is for business and requires a solution fairly quickly. But if I must explain...

I used to store the result as an object. That way it could either be a number or a string. I would just determine the type (double or string) through an algorithm and convert it accordingly. That, however, caused problems since I lose the precision of a double by storing it in an object. So if there is someway to call one method that can return a double OR a string (by using some type of polymorphism), I can keep the double precision.

[alc6379]

You can't really return more than one value from a single method type, even if you do overloading.

But, what you could do is break up your logic some, or use an object that contains a String, a Double, and a Result Code. Have the code return this Result object, then code logic to say something like this:

Result r;
//do something to populate r

switch (r.ResultCode)
   {
	case ResultCode.Fail:
		// do something with r.String result
	case ResultCode.Success:
		//do something with the r.Double result
   }

Basically, what I'm saying is that you could make an object that has the properties that you want, and based on what the Result Code is.