Method and system in an electronic spreadsheet for managing and handling user-defined options

• US 20020007372A1
• Filed: 04/19/2001
• Published: 01/17/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bauchot, Frederic, Mauduit, Daniel, Harari, Albert
• Granted Patent: US 7,272,783 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/503
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

The present invention relates to the field of information processing by digital computers, and more particularly to a method and system of processing user defined boolean variables in a multi dimensional spreadsheet comprising a plurality of cells identified by a cell address along each dimension, said method comprising the steps of:

defining one or a plurality of boolean variables in a table;

referencing the one or plurality of boolean variables in one or a plurality of cells;

activating one or plurality of boolean variables in the table;

determining the content of the cell or plurality of cells depending on whether the one or plurality of boolean variables are activated or not in the table.

Claims

1. A method of processing user defined boolean variables in a multi dimensional spreadsheet (200) comprising a plurality of cells identified by a cell address along each dimension, said method comprising the steps of:

defining one or a plurality of boolean variables in a table (400);

referencing said one or plurality of boolean variables in one or a plurality of cells;

activating one or plurality of boolean variables in said table (400);

determining the content of said cell or plurality of cells depending on whether said one or plurality of boolean variables are activated or not in said table.

2. The method according to the preceding claims wherein said step of defining one or a plurality of boolean variables in a table, comprises the further steps of:

for each defined boolean variable;

assigning a name (311) and storing in the table (400) said name (403);

selecting a status value (303) depending on whether the boolean variable is activated or not and storing in the table said status value (404) .

3. The method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein said step of activating one or plurality of boolean variables in said table, comprises the further step of:

updating in the table the status value (304, 404) of the one or plurality of activated boolean variables.

4. The method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the step of determining the content of said cell or plurality of cells depending on whether said one or plurality of boolean variables are activated or not, comprises the further step of:

determining, referring to the table (400), whether the one or the plurality of boolean variables referenced in the cell or plurality of cells are activated or not;

computing the value of said cell or plurality of cells according to the value of said one or plurality of activated boolean variables.

5. The method according to any one of the preceding claims comprising the further step of:

changing in the table (400) the name (311) of one or a plurality of boolean variables.

6. The method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein said step of selecting a status value (303) depending on whether the boolean variable is activated or not comprises the further steps of:

setting the status value of the boolean variable to “

true”

if said boolean variable is activated, and

setting the status value of the boolean variables to “

false”

if said boolean variable is not activated.

7. The method according to any one of the preceding claims comprising the further step of:

setting the value of the boolean variable to one when the status value is “

true”

, or

setting the value of the boolean variable to zero when the status value is “

false”

.

8. The method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein said steps of assigning a name, changing the name, selecting a status value, updating the status value are executed by means of an interactive user interface.

9. The method according to any one of the preceding claims wherein said interactive user interface comprises a dialog box (300) displayed on a screen (106) of a computer system (100).

10. A system (100) comprising means adapted for carrying out the method according to any one of the preceding claims.

11. A computer program comprising computer readable instructions adapted for carrying out the method according to claims 1 to 9.