The design and implementation of a spreadsheet based on constraints
| dc.contributor.author | Stadelmann, Marc | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-08-15T18:26:12Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-08-15T18:26:12Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 1993 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 1993 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Computer Science | |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Science M.Sc. | en |
| dc.description.abstract | Constraints allow the user to declare relationships among objects and let the system maintain and satisfy these relationships. This thesis is concerned with incorporating constraints into spreadsheets. Instead of formulas, we let the user enter numerical constraints over the real values in the cells of the spreadsheet. Recalculating the spreadsheet then means (1) checking whether the given cell-values satisfy the constraints and (2) finding values for empty cells that satisfy the constraints. We provide a brief overview of the typical conventional spreadsheet and give a formal (denotational) definition of its meaning (semantics). We then describe the design of our new spreadsheet and compare its semantics with the conventional spreadsheet's. The concept of constraints over cells is extended to constraints over arrays of cells (vectors). We introduce a language for constraints over the vectors of a two-dimensional spreadsheet and define several operations on these vectors. We have implemented a subset of this new spreadsheet restricted to equality-constraints. A brief overview of this effort is provided and several implementation-related issues are discussed. We conclude this thesis by giving a collection of examples for which the idea of a constraint-based spreadsheet is well, or even uniquely, suited and we compare the solution of these examples with what conventional spreadsheets offer to solve the same problems. | en |
| dc.format.extent | 69 pages | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/19822 | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | en_US |
| dc.subject | UN SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions | en |
| dc.title | The design and implementation of a spreadsheet based on constraints | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
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