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Gencel: a program generator for correct spreadsheets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2016

MARTIN ERWIG ,
ROBIN ABRAHAM ,
STEVE KOLLMANSBERGER  and
IRENE COOPERSTEIN
MARTIN ERWIG
Affiliation:
School of EECS, Oregon State University, OR, USA (e-mail: erwig@eecs.oregonstate.edu, abraharo@eecs.oregonstate.edu, kollmast@eecs.oregonstate.edu)
ROBIN ABRAHAM
Affiliation:
School of EECS, Oregon State University, OR, USA (e-mail: erwig@eecs.oregonstate.edu, abraharo@eecs.oregonstate.edu, kollmast@eecs.oregonstate.edu)
STEVE KOLLMANSBERGER
Affiliation:
School of EECS, Oregon State University, OR, USA (e-mail: erwig@eecs.oregonstate.edu, abraharo@eecs.oregonstate.edu, kollmast@eecs.oregonstate.edu)
IRENE COOPERSTEIN
Affiliation:
Department of CS, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA (e-mail: Irene.Cooperstein@mail.uh.edu)
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Abstract

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A huge discrepancy between theory and practice exists in one popular application area of functional programming – spreadsheets. Although spreadsheets are the most frequently used (functional) programs, they fall short of the quality level that is expected of functional programs, which is evidenced by the fact that existing spreadsheets contain many errors, some of which have serious impacts. We have developed a template specification language that allows the definition of spreadsheet templates that describe possible spreadsheet evolutions. This language is based on a table calculus that formally captures the process of creating and modifying spreadsheets. We have developed a type system for this calculus that can prevent type, reference, and omission errors from occurring in spreadsheets. On the basis of the table calculus we have developed Gencel, a system for generating reliable spreadsheets. We have implemented a prototype version of Gencel as an extension of Excel.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Functional Programming , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , May 2006 , pp. 293 - 325
Copyright
2005 Cambridge University Press

Footnotes

This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under the grant ITR-0325273 and by the EUSES Consortium (http://EUSESconsortium.org).
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