1) the MSDN articles were copied verbatim from office help files, or vice versa. Whatever cost less money for some poor soul to do by the hour.
2) notice this part of the file:
Usually, the data type of result is a Byte, Byte variant, Integer, Integer variant, Long, or Variant containing a Long, regardless of whether or not result is a whole number.
USUALLY? Well, in MS terms, if you look deep enough into this they're basically saying that the result can't be longer than a LONG. But you're left to figure that out for yourself (as you just did!).
Does it matter? iNet is putting the ABS() function in to cover the scenario where you pass a negative val to the function. If you do pass one, you'll get the MOD number back but with a nice little "-" sign attached to it.
Does it matter? iNet is putting the ABS() function in to cover the scenario where you pass a negative val to the function. If you do pass one, you'll get the MOD number back but with a nice little "-" sign attached to it.
The main point is that you will get undesired results without Abs(). So it wasn't really about having a prefixed minus sign. Remember that minus * minus = plus, so this part