Querying model-driven spreadsheets

Abstract

Spreadsheets are being used with many different purposes that range from toy applications to complete information systems. In any of these cases, they are often used as data repositories that can grow significantly. As the amount of data grows, it also becomes more difficult to extract concrete information out of them. This paper focuses on the problem of spreadsheet querying. In particular, we propose an expressive and composable technique where intuitive queries can be defined. Our approach builds on a model-driven spreadsheet development environment, and queries are expressed referencing entities in the model of a spreadsheet instead of in its actual data. Finally, the system that we have implemented relies on Google’s query function for spreadsheets.