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arXiv:1901.11100cs.PL

ExceLint: Automatically Finding Spreadsheet Formula Errors

Daniel W. Barowy, Emery D. Berger, Benjamin Zorn

Abstract

Spreadsheets are one of the most widely used programming environments, and are widely deployed in domains like finance where errors can have catastrophic consequences. We present a static analysis specifically designed to find spreadsheet formula errors. Our analysis directly leverages the rectangular character of spreadsheets. It uses an information-theoretic approach to identify formulas that are especially surprising disruptions to nearby rectangular regions. We present ExceLint, an implementation of our static analysis for Microsoft Excel. We demonstrate that ExceLint is fast and effective: across a corpus of 70 spreadsheets, ExceLint takes a median of 5 seconds per spreadsheet, and it significantly outperforms the state of the art analysis.

arXiv comments
Appeared at OOPSLA 2018
Journal reference
Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, Volume 2 Issue OOPSLA, November 2018
DOI
doi:10.1145/3276518
Subjects
cs.PLProgramming Languages cs.SESoftware Engineering

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Linked by 2 identifiable commenters in 2 comments across 2 threads, from Jul 2019 to Oct 2020. Found in 1 HN submission from Feb 2019 to Feb 2019. Open submission discussions.

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Discussed in comments2 threads

  1. Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors 1 comment

    • Obligatory link to excelint/checkcell threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20491091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22431500 https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.11100 One of the interesting takeaways from Emery Berger's talk, is that he was able to replicate to 2 decimal…

      milesvpView on HNParent context

  2. Saving the World from Spreadsheets [video] 1 comment

    • Here's the corresponding papers: CheckCell - https://people.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/CheckCell-preprint-O... ExceLint - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.11100.pdf

      bschneView on HNParent context

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