Comments on Handling Objects in Spreadsheets

Abstract

This note discusses a framework for handling objects of a given object oriented library through spreadsheet functions. We first describe the simple and natural representation of object references through strings (object handles). A small set of spreadsheet functions then allows object instantiation and method invocation. Based on this framework we discuss various aspects, e.g., how to ensure consistent object dependency via the spreadsheet cell dependency tree, how to mimic anonymous objects, and how to implement concurrency (asynchronous worksheet functions).

The concepts discussed here are implemented in an Excel object handler for Java libraries called "Obba", which can be viewed as a reference implementation of the proposed API.

Keywords: Spreadsheet, Object Oriented, Concurrency, Parallel Computing, Multithreadding, Excel, Java

JEL Classification: C63, C88