Need to validate a scientific spreadsheet written in Java

Question

I need a validation framework, for an app written in Java, Eclipse RCP. The UI is a simple spreadsheet with many input fields and many output fields.

The user input needs to be validated, for example:

• Thresholds for numerical fields
• Required fields for certain operations
• Context-sensitive help based on the validation results
• Multi-field validation, e.g a field is valid depending upon the values in other fields

Wondering if there is anything out there?

Answer 1

Sounds to me like you're thinking too much about spreadsheets and UI and not enough about objects.

I'd recommend that you create an object that represents the problem you're trying to solve. Build all those thresholds, required fields, and multi-field validations into the object. Test it, get it working, and then plug a List of them into the spreadsheet for display.