A method of safe and efficient editing in tabular forms using a descriptive grammar of semantic structures

Operations in tabular forms conforming to the structures of relationships between cells (called "semantic structures") have relied on a great deal of manpower in the existing application software. It is difficult to efficiently and properly process huge amounts of information with conventional methods. Therefore, we are developing a method of operation that uses computer assistance to safely and efficiently edit tabular forms to solve this problem. The method of operation guarantees the semantic structures of tabular forms will be retained after the editing process. First, we developed the grammar for expressing the semantic structure rules in tabular forms. It was called a "descriptive grammar for semantic structures". Second, we developed a model based on a graph that could express semantic structures as a method of expressing tabular forms, which was called a "graph expressing semantic structures". Finally, we developed operation algorithms for the tabular forms based on this model and a prototype system as an implementation of these algorithms.