Parsing Excel formulas: A grammar and its application on 4 large datasets

Aivaloglou, Efthimia; Hoepelman, David; Hermans, Felienne

doi:10.1002/smr.1895

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To do so, we use XLParser, a parser developed by Aivaloglou et. al [27] [28] that produces a parse tree for spreadsheet formulas. In XLBlocks, this parse tree is converted into an XML definition of the block model, which is then translated to the formula's block-based representation (see Figure 2).…”

Section: B Generate Block-based Formulasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of a Block-based Language on Formula Comprehension in Spreadsheets

Jansen

Hermans

2021

2021 IEEE/ACM 29th International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The use of spreadsheets in industry is widespread. It is known that spreadsheets have an average life span of five years, and during this life span, they are used on average by thirteen different persons. Consequently, spreadsheets need maintenance, and knowledge about the spreadsheet needs to be transferred from one user to another. To minimize the risk of introducing new errors, a thorough understanding of the spreadsheet's formulas is needed during maintenance and knowledge transfer tasks.Research on the use of block-based languages has shown that they positively affect the comprehension of program code. We hypothesize that using a block-based representation of a spreadsheet formula will positively affect formula comprehension.Hence, we extended XLBlocks, a block-based formula editor for spreadsheets, with the functionality to generate a block-based representation of an existing formula. We conduct a think-aloud study with twenty-one experienced spreadsheet users from industry and ask them to perform a set of spreadsheet comprehension tasks using XLBlocks. During an interview, we ask them, using the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations framework, to reflect on the use of XLBlocks.We found that participants preferred to use the block-based representation of formulas when analyzing or explaining formulas or to implement non-trivial changes. Named function parameters and the absence of parentheses and commas make functions easier to understand. Furthermore, the visualization enables the user to separate smaller parts in the formula, which improves comprehension. Finally, the possibility to navigate from formula to formula makes it clear how formulas work together and improve the understanding of the spreadsheet as a whole.

show abstract

Section: B Generate Block-based Formulasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of a Block-based Language on Formula Comprehension in Spreadsheets

Jansen

Hermans

2021

2021 IEEE/ACM 29th International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The tasks are summarized in Table II. To ensure that the tasks would be similar to the tasks the participants perform in their spreadsheets, we selected formulas that are frequently used in spreadsheets from the Enron corpus [14] and our collection of industry spreadsheets [16].…”

Section: Think-aloud Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

XLBlocks: a Block-based Formula Editor for Spreadsheet Formulas

Jansen

Hermans

2019

2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spreadsheets are frequently used in industry to support critical business decisions. Unfortunately, they also suffer from error-proneness, which sometimes results in costly consequences. Experiments in the field of program education have shown that programmers tend to make fewer errors and can better focus on the logic of a program if they use a block-based language instead of a textual one. We hypothesize that a blockbased formula editor could support spreadsheet users in a similar way. Therefore, we develop XLBlocks and conduct a thinkaloud study with 13 experienced spreadsheet users from industry. Participants are asked to create and edit several formulas, using our block-based language. We then ask them to evaluate this editor using the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations framework. We found that for all dimensions the block-based formula editor received a better evaluation than the default text-based formula editor.

show abstract