in reply to Re: Excel Spreadsheet Data Set
in thread Excel Spreadsheet Data Set

The issue with directly manipulating Excel files is that you have to have a good parser and a good writer. Spreadsheet::ParseExcel works quite well as a Parser. We use it at work, quite effectively. (It's impossible to read his code, and there's numerous improvements that can be made to his alpha release, but that's neither here nor there.)

However, Spreadsheet::WriteExcel has been known to have issues, especially when working with Spreadsheet::ParseExcel, primarily with formulas.

That aside, those two should make a very good pair.

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Re: Re: Re: Excel Spreadsheet Data Set
by jmcnamara (Monsignor) on Aug 23, 2001 at 02:09 UTC

    However, Spreadsheet::WriteExcel has been known to have issues, especially when working with Spreadsheet::ParseExcel, primarily with formulas.

    "Issues" might scare away the punters. ;-)

    The situation is as follows. Excel writes a formula in two parts. The RPN binary encoding of the formula and the result of the calculation. Spreadsheet::WriteExcel only writes the encoded formula part because it wouldn't be possible to the calculate, a priori, the result of arbitrarily complex expressions. Equally Spreadsheet::ParseExcel only reads the result part of a formula because it isn't in a position to evaluate the formula. Therefore, when Spreadsheet::ParseExcel reads a formula written by Spreadsheet::WriteExcel it only sees a blank result.

    In the circumstances this is a best effort by both modules and most users would be unaffected by it.

    John.
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