On the semantics for spreadsheets with sheet-defined functions

Alexander Asp Bock; Thomas Bøgholm; Peter Sestoft; Bent Thomsen; Lone Leth Thomsen

doi:10.1016/j.cola.2020.100960

On the semantics for spreadsheets with sheet-defined functions

Alexander Asp Bock, Thomas Bøgholm, Peter Sestoft, Bent Thomsen, Lone Leth Thomsen

Computer Science

Research output: Journal Article or Conference Article in Journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

We give an operational semantics for the evaluation of spreadsheets, including sheet-defined and built-in numeric functions in the Funcalc spreadsheet platform. The semantics allows for different implementations and we discuss sheet-defined functions implemented using both interpretation and run-time code generation. The semantics specifies the expected result of a computation, also considering non-deterministic functions, independently of an evaluation mechanism. It can be extended to include the cost of formula evaluation for a cost analysis e.g. for use in parallelization of computations. An interesting future direction is to investigate experimentally how close our semantics is to that of major spreadsheet implementations.

Original language	English
Article number	100960
Journal	Journal of Computer Languages
Volume	57
Number of pages	11
ISSN	2590-1184
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cola.2020.100960
Publication status	Published - Mar 2020

Keywords

Spreadsheet
Semantics
Funcalc
Sheet-defined function
Recalculation

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10.1016/j.cola.2020.100960Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

1-s2.0-S2590118420300204-mainFinal published version, 2.22 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "On the semantics for spreadsheets with sheet-defined functions",

abstract = "We give an operational semantics for the evaluation of spreadsheets, including sheet-defined and built-in numeric functions in the Funcalc spreadsheet platform. The semantics allows for different implementations and we discuss sheet-defined functions implemented using both interpretation and run-time code generation. The semantics specifies the expected result of a computation, also considering non-deterministic functions, independently of an evaluation mechanism. It can be extended to include the cost of formula evaluation for a cost analysis e.g. for use in parallelization of computations. An interesting future direction is to investigate experimentally how close our semantics is to that of major spreadsheet implementations.",

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AU - Bock, Alexander Asp

AU - Bøgholm, Thomas

AU - Sestoft, Peter

AU - Thomsen, Bent

AU - Thomsen, Lone Leth

PY - 2020/3

Y1 - 2020/3

N2 - We give an operational semantics for the evaluation of spreadsheets, including sheet-defined and built-in numeric functions in the Funcalc spreadsheet platform. The semantics allows for different implementations and we discuss sheet-defined functions implemented using both interpretation and run-time code generation. The semantics specifies the expected result of a computation, also considering non-deterministic functions, independently of an evaluation mechanism. It can be extended to include the cost of formula evaluation for a cost analysis e.g. for use in parallelization of computations. An interesting future direction is to investigate experimentally how close our semantics is to that of major spreadsheet implementations.

AB - We give an operational semantics for the evaluation of spreadsheets, including sheet-defined and built-in numeric functions in the Funcalc spreadsheet platform. The semantics allows for different implementations and we discuss sheet-defined functions implemented using both interpretation and run-time code generation. The semantics specifies the expected result of a computation, also considering non-deterministic functions, independently of an evaluation mechanism. It can be extended to include the cost of formula evaluation for a cost analysis e.g. for use in parallelization of computations. An interesting future direction is to investigate experimentally how close our semantics is to that of major spreadsheet implementations.

KW - Spreadsheet

KW - Semantics

KW - Funcalc

KW - Sheet-defined function

KW - Recalculation

U2 - 10.1016/j.cola.2020.100960

DO - 10.1016/j.cola.2020.100960

M3 - Journal article

VL - 57

JO - Journal of Computer Languages

JF - Journal of Computer Languages

SN - 2590-1184

M1 - 100960

ER -

On the semantics for spreadsheets with sheet-defined functions

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Keywords

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