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IUI
2009
ACM

Intelligently creating and recommending reusable reformatting rules

14 years 15 days ago
Intelligently creating and recommending reusable reformatting rules
When users combine data from multiple sources into a spreadsheet or dataset, the result is often a mishmash of different formats, since phone numbers, dates, course numbers and other string-like kinds of data can each be written in many different formats. Although spreadsheets provide features for reformatting numbers and a few specific kinds of string data, they do not provide any support for the wide range of other kinds of string data encountered by users. We describe a user interface where a user can describe the formats of each kind of data. We provide an algorithm that uses these formats to automatically generate reformatting rules that transform strings from one format to another. In effect, our system enables users to create a small expert system called a “tope” that can recognize and reformat instances of one kind of data. Later, as the user is working with a spreadsheet, our system recommends appropriate topes for validating and reformatting the data. With a recall of ov...
Christopher Scaffidi, Brad A. Myers, Mary Shaw
Added 17 Mar 2010
Updated 17 Mar 2010
Type Conference
Year 2009
Where IUI
Authors Christopher Scaffidi, Brad A. Myers, Mary Shaw
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