soquel / spreadsheet-in-js

Simple spreadsheet idea in html and javascript

Spreadsheet in js

One idea to implement a spreadsheet in html and javascript.

Demo

Features

• proof-of-concept code quality
• no error handling whatsoever (i.e. cycles in the sheet are not detected, erroneous formulas are not reported, etc.)
• doesn't support more than 26 columns (i.e. it can handle only A..Z columns, AA, AB, and so forth are not supported)
• written in pure js, no dependencies

How it works

Look in the source, it's very simple really. Any onchange event in any cell causes recomputation of all cells. If cell's input starts with =, it's parsed as a formula. Any <letter><digit> in the string is replaced with a function call to compute that particular cell formula. Once all the string replacements are done, an eval is called on the string.

Improvements

• add cycles' detection, so user can't exceeded stack size by running too much recursion
• add caching so not all formulas have to be recomputed on each change
• support detecting invalid formulas
• make it work without element ids and support multiple sheets on one page
• add support for mathematical functions like users are used to from spreadsheet software (e.g. =POWER() instead of currently Math.pow(), and so on)