Manipulating labelled data for data entry in management applications

摘要

A method is disclosed for data entry into the content of cells belonging to an output field, said data being expressed as a mathematical expression of the cell contents of at least one input field in a data multidimensional table used by a data management application. The comprises the steps of entering labels corresponding to the at least one input field and a label corresponding to the output field, said later label being expressed as the mathematical expression of said labels of said at least one input field; parsing the label of the output field into a mathematical expression by identifying the numeric operands, the operators and the at least one existing input field label; translating in the mathematical expression, the at least one existing input field label into the address of the cell containing the at least one input field label; and, for each cell of the output field, pasting in the cell content the translated mathematical expression and replacing in said pasted mathematical expression each cell address of the at least one input field label by the cell address of the at least input field belonging to the same record.

主权项

1. A method for entry of data into content of cells belonging to an output field, said data being expressed as a mathematical expression of the cell contents of at least one input field in a data multidimensional table used by a data management application, said multidimensional table comprising cells arranged as a grid of records and fields, each cell of the multidimensional table corresponding to an intersection of one record with one field, each cell of the multidimensional table being identified by a cell address and comprising a cell content, said grid of records of the multidimensional table comprising a header record in which each cell content is entered as a unique character string label identifying each field of the multidimensional table, said method comprising:
entering, by a processor of a computer system, into cells of the multidimensional table located within the header record: (i) at least one input field label respectively corresponding to the at least one input field such that each input field label is entered into a respective unique cell within the header record and (ii) an output label corresponding to the output field such that the output label is entered into a specifically unique cell within the header record, said output label being expressed as a mathematical expression of one or more labels of the at least one input field label, said mathematical expression of the one or more labels consisting of a formula whose computed value is entered into cells of the output field, said records and fields of the multidimensional table consisting of either rows and columns respectively in accordance with a vertical orientation of the multidimensional table or columns and rows respectively in accordance with a horizontal orientation of the multidimensional table; said processor parsing the output label to identify each input field label of the at least one input field label; said processor translating the mathematical expression of the one or more labels such that each identified input field label of the at least one input field label is translated into the cell address of the cell containing each identified input field label of the at least one input field label; and for each cell of the output field, said processor pasting in said each cell of the output field the translated mathematical expression and replacing in said pasted mathematical expression the cell address of the cell containing each input field label of the at least one input field label by the corresponding cell address of each input field of the at least one input field in the same record that contains said each cell of the output field.