In Excel, there is a nice feature where if you enter 1, 2, 3 in three consecutive cells and then select the cells and drag down, it automatically fills in the rest of the cells as 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. It is also able to match more patterns. For example, if I did 2, 4, 6, 8, it would recognize I am adding 2 and then suggest 10, 12, 14, etc.
How does Excel know which numbers? Do they hardcode the different cases (i.e. adding some constant, subtracting some constant, multiplying by some constant) or is there some algorithm that can automatically predict this for you? (This question should be language-agnostic, but if it helps, I want to do this in jQuery)
Thanks!
I’m pretty sure it’s a simple thing to do. Excel probably checks, when a user enters three numbers, the delta between each consecutive number. If they are the same both times, it will use that delta to predict the next number.