The Objectsheet: Integrating External Data

The Objectsheet's natural object-oriented data structure makes it easy to integrate with external data sources. If you download the Objectsheet and run it from your desktop, you can read in external data and process the results in a structured way. The Objectsheet has the following data integration features:

• Read CSV files Clicking on the Objectsheet's File > Open... menu shows the open file dialog box. From there, you can navigate to and select CSV ("Comma Separated Variables") files. The Objectsheet will add the data from that file as an Objectsheet Table to the current work.
• Copy cells from Excel You can select and then copy a range of cells from Excel or other spreadsheet application and paste them into the Objectsheet. To do this, click inside an existing Objectsheet Table and either select Paste Objects from the Edit menu or use the Control-Alt-v keyboard shortcut. Only values are transferred, not formulas or cell formats.
  
  Where you click in an existing table will be the upper left hand corner of the pasted cells (i.e., click the cell in column "a", row zero to paste the data from there; click in a new, empty row at the bottom to extend the current table with the data).
• Copy table data to Excel From the Objectsheet's Edit menu, select "Copy Objects". Then switch to Excel and paste the data (using Control-v, Command-v, or Edit > Paste). Only values are transferred, not formulas or formats.
  
  You can select individual rows and columns by highlighting row label cells (the leftmost cell in the row) or the column selector (the thin bar right below the column name). For the row label cells, you can also click and drag.
• Read and post XML data Javascript in modern browsers have built-in functions for reading XML data using the XMLHttpRequest, and additional functions for parsing and analyzing results. The File.loadURL() function allows you to easily retrieve data from the Internet, which you can then parse into an Objectsheet Table. You can use the File.webPost() function to return data to a server.
• Query RDF databases using Sparql The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a metadata framework for the web. Sparql is a popular query language for databases of RDF statements. This Objectsheet example demonstrates querying the DBpedia RDF datastore of Wikipedia information.