dwhalen:

Usually I simply read rows until I find the header, something like:

while (my $data = $ss->getNextRow()) {
   # skip lines until we find column header "Last Name" in first colum
+n
   next if $data[0] eq 'Last Name';

   ... stuff ...
}

[download]

If your data doesn't *have* any headers, just some blank rows at the top, you can do basically the same thing--skip rows until you get a line that's not blank:

while (my $data = $ss->getNextRow()) {
   # skip lines until we find a non-blank row
   next unless grep { ! /^\s+$/ } @$data;

   ... stuff ...
}

[download]

Or, if your data may have arbitrary junk before it, but your data is always the same number of columns, you can delete rows that have the wrong number of columns: 

while (my $data = $ss->getNextRow()) {
   # skip lines unless they have the right number of columns
   next unless $expected_columns == @$data;

   ... stuff ...
}

[download]

You'll want to take some precautions to do extra checking, though, because these methods can be fragile. Even if the spreadsheets are computer-generated and have the same format, someone's going to munge one before sending it to you at some point, and you don't want to have to figure out the problem later. Instead, be sure to reject the spreadsheet with an appropriate message if you can.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

In reply to Re: reading xls by roboticus
in thread reading xls by dwhalen1

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