CT and Spreadsheet tables

Hi all,

    

    thinking about CT in spreadsheet tables, I was wondering about how
    this is supposed to be handled by the generic proposal and whether
    the current way to track changes is compatible with Excel. 

    

    Although the generic proposal is able to handle any possible kind of
    changes, spreadsheets with many formulas and dependencies are
    somewhat problematic. Let's have a look at the following example:

    

    |----------------------------|

    |4711 |                       |

    |----------------------------|

    |42     |=SUM(A1:A2)|

    |----------------------------|

    

    Then we

    

    1. Insert a row

    2. Insert a column

    3. Change 4711 to 4712

    

    The result is

    

    |---------------------------------|

    |4712 |     |                       |

    |---------------------------------|

    |          |     |                       |

    |---------------------------------|

    |42     |     |=SUM(A1:A3)|

    |---------------------------------|

    

    

    The result in the current implementation is this (I omitted some
    style information):

    

                <table:tracked-changes>

                    <table:insertion table:id="ct1" table:type="row"
    table:position="1" table:table="0"/>

                    <table:insertion table:id="ct2"
    table:type="column" table:position="1" table:table="0"/>

                    <table:cell-content-change table:id="ct3">

                        <table:cell-address table:column="0"
    table:row="0" table:table="0"/>

                        <table:previous>

                            <table:change-track-table-cell
    office:value-type="float" office:value="4711"/>

                        </table:previous>

                    </table:cell-content-change>

                </table:tracked-changes>

                <table:table>

                    <table:table-column/>

                    <table:table-column
    table:number-columns-repeated="2"/>

                    <table:table-row>

                        <table:table-cell office:value-type="float"
    office:value="4712">

                            <text:p>4712</text:p>

                        </table:table-cell>

                        <table:table-cell
    table:number-columns-repeated="2"/>

                    </table:table-row>

                    <table:table-row>

                        <table:table-cell
    table:number-columns-repeated="3"/>

                    </table:table-row>

                    <table:table-row>

                        <table:table-cell office:value-type="float"
    office:value="42">

                            <text:p>42</text:p>

                        </table:table-cell>

                        <table:table-cell/>

                        <table:table-cell
    table:formula="of:=SUM([.A1:.A3])" office:value-type="float"
    office:value="4754">

                            <text:p>4754</text:p>

                        </table:table-cell>

                    </table:table-row>

                </table:table>

    

    Please note that there is no CT markup in the table xml code.
    There's only a high-level description of what has happened
    table:tracked-changes section. This results in a lean xml code, on
    the other hand you need to know some application logic in order to
    undo the changes, i.e. the office:value in C3 has to be adjusted if
    you revert the third change.

    

    Expressing this example using the generic ct proposal, the xml would
    look (somewhat) like this:

    

                <table:table>

                    <table:table-column
    ac:change002="ct2,remove,table:number-columns-repeated,2"/>

                    <table:table-column
    delta:insertion-type="insert-with-content"
    delta:insertion-change-idref="ct2"
    table:number-columns-repeated="2"/>

                    <table:table-row>

                        <table:table-cell office:value-type="float"
    ac:change003="ct3,modify,office:value,4711" office:value="4712">

                            <delta:removed-content
    delta:removal-change-idref="ct3">            

                            <text:p>4711</text:p>

                            </delta:removed-content>

                            <text:p
    delta:insertion-type="insert-with-content"
    delta:insertion-change-idref="ct3" >4712</text:p>

                        </table:table-cell>

                        <table:table-cell
    delta:insertion-type="insert-with-content"
    delta:insertion-change-idref="ct2"/>

                        <table:table-cell/>

                    </table:table-row>

                    <table:table-row
    delta:insertion-type="insert-with-content"
    delta:insertion-change-idref="ct1">

                        <table:table-cell
    ac:change002="ct2,modify,table:number-columns-repeated,2"
    table:number-columns-repeated="3"/>

                    </table:table-row>

                    <table:table-row>

                        <table:table-cell office:value-type="float"
    office:value="42">

                            <text:p>42</text:p>

                        </table:table-cell>

                        <table:table-cell
    delta:insertion-type="insert-with-content"
    delta:insertion-change-idref="ct2"/>

                        <table:table-cell
    table:formula="of:=SUM([.A1:.A3])"
    ac:change001="ct1,modify,table:formula,'of:=SUM([.A1:.A2])'"
    office:value-type="float" 

                                                                       
                                               
    ac:change003="ct3,modify,office:value,4753" office:value="4754">

                            <delta:removed-content
    delta:removal-change-idref="ct3">            

                            <text:p>4753</text:p>

                            </delta:removed-content>

                            <text:p
    delta:insertion-type="insert-with-content"
    delta:insertion-change-idref="ct3" >4754</text:p>

                        </table:table-cell>

                    </table:table-row>

                </table:table>

    

    Any further changes made to the cell contents of A1 adds one
    attribute to A1 *and* to all depending cells, in this case C3. So in
    case of a large table with lots of dependencies this results in a
    bloated xml file (for 256 x 256 cells each depending on a single
    cell this means that each value change of this cell results in ~ 2MB
    of CT code only for the ac:change attributes). So from this point of
    view the current approach seems to be more efficient.

    

    Any opinions?

    

    Regards,

    

    Frank

    

    
-- 

      

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