Enhanced Spreadsheet Computing with Finite-Domain Constraint Satisfaction

Abstract: The spreadsheet application is among the most widely used computing tools in modern society. It provides excellent usability and usefulness, and it easily enables a non-programmer to perform programming-like tasks in a visual tabular "pen and paper" approach. However, spreadsheets are mostly limited to bookkeeping-like applications due to their mono-directional data flow. This paper shows how the spreadsheet computing paradigm is extended to break this limitation for solving constraint satisfaction problems. We present an enhanced spreadsheet system where finite-domain constraint solving is well supported in a visual environment. Furthermore, a spreadsheet-specific constraint language is constructed for general users to specify constraints among data cells in a declarative and scalable way. The new spreadsheet system significantly simplifies the development of many constraint-based applications using a visual tabular interface. Examples are given to illustrate the usability and usefulness of the extended spreadsheet paradigm. KEYWORDS: Spreadsheet computing, Finite-domain constraint satisfaction, Constraint logic programming