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Improving spreadsheet test practices

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journal contribution
posted on 2013-09-01, 13:35 authored by Felienne HermansFelienne Hermans

Current testing practices for spreadsheets are
ad hoc in nature: spreadsheet users put 'test
formulas' in their spreadsheets to validate out-comes. In this paper we show that this practice
is common, by analyzing a large set of spread-sheets from practice to investigate if spread-sheet users are currently testing. In a follow up
analysis, we study the test practices found in
this set to deeply understand the way in which
spreadsheet users test, in lack of formal testing
methods. Subsequently, we describe the Ex-pector approach to extract formulas that are
already present in a spreadsheet, presenting
these formulas to the user and suggesting im-provements, both on the level of individual test
formulas as on the spreadsheet as a whole by
increasing the coverage of the test formulas. Fi-nally, we o er support to understand why a test
formula is breaking. We end the paper with
an example underlining the applicability of our
approach.

 

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