Formula for sum of minimums in a category

Question

These are my table columns:
| Date | Item | Remaining |
| Feb 1, 2009 | A | 10 |
| Feb 2, 2009 | A | 6 |
| Feb 1, 2009 | B | 4 |
| Feb 2, 2009 | B | 3 |
| Dec 31, 2038 | A | 1 |
I have it categorized by Item.
Within each item (category), I want to capture the minimum of Remaining where the date is <= NOW(). Then I want the sum of those Remaining values.
I'm guessing this needs an array function, but I can't figure out how to compose it or if it even works... Anything I try tells me "Arrays can contain only constant values".
For the above table, the desired answer would be 9. I welcome your suggestions...

Answer 1

Hello
My guess is that 9 is not the value returned given your requirements description.
I added an auxiliary column requested by a clear bug.
In Table 1, the formula in column E is
=CODE(C)
In "Unnamed Table"
A2 is empty
A3 contains the letter "A"
A4 contains the letter "B"
in column B, the formula is:
=TODAY()
in column C, the formula is:
*CAUTION, the message parser truncates the formula so I pass it as a screenshot.*
Here is the text one but it will be truncated
=IF(ISBLANK(A),SUMIF(Table 1 :: B,"<" values whose date is less than the date stored in column B
When the cell in column A contains a letter, it returns the sum of every 'Remaining" values whose date is less than the date stored in column B and whose Item is the one defined in column A.
The auxiliary column is required because at this time, when we ask Numbers to compare two cells containing the same letter, it returns FALSE.
Using CODE() I ask it to compare two numerical values and it behaves correctly.
Here is the report which I sent to Apple Bugs Hunters:
Your tracking number for this issue is Bug ID# 6562953
<div class="jive-quote">May you test that:
In cell B2 I typed the letter A
In cell D2 I typed the same letter A
In cell E2 I typed the formula =(B2=D2)
In cell F2 I typed the formula =(CODE(B2)=CODE(D2))
In Numbers '08 it logically returns:
In E2 : TRUE
in F2 : TRUE
In Numbers '09 it returns
In E2 : FALSE
in F2 : TRUE
It resembles to a bug</div>
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE vendredi 6 février 2009 15:40:22)