What I am trying to do is just use Perl to convert a .xls table to a tab-delimited .txt file.

Writing a converter that uses the cell_handler() callback is trickier than writing a converter based on the standard interface because you have to keep track of your position in the workbook yourself.

Here is a sample xls2tab converter. 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Spreadsheet::ParseExcel;
use Data::Dumper;

my $parse_excel = new Spreadsheet::ParseExcel(CellHandler => \&cell_ha
+ndler,
                                              NotSetCell  => 1);



my $prev_index  = -1;
my $prev_row    = 0;
my $prev_col    = 0;

my $workbook    = $parse_excel->Parse('book1.xls');

# Define our own cell handler to reduce S::PE's memory use.
# This function will be called each time a cell is encountered.
# However, it will ignore blank cells so we have to keep track
# of our location in the worksheet so that we can pad out blank
# cells and rows.
#
sub cell_handler {

    my $workbook    = $_[0];
    my $sheet_index = $_[1];
    my $row         = $_[2];
    my $col         = $_[3];
    my $cell        = $_[4];

    # Only process the first worksheet
    if ($sheet_index > 0) {
        $workbook->ParseAbort(1);
        return;
    }

    # Reset the col counter between rows
    $prev_col = 0 if $row != $prev_row;


    # Add tabs between fields and newlines between rows. Also pad
    # any missing rows or columns.
    #
    print "\n" for $prev_row +1 .. $row;
    print "\t" for $prev_col +1 .. $col;

    # Print the formatted value of the cell
    print $cell->{_Value};

    # Keep track of where we are
    $prev_row   = $row;
    $prev_col   = $col;
}

[download]

--
John.

In reply to Re: Spreadsheet::ParseExcel vs alternative Cell Handler by jmcnamara
in thread Spreadsheet::ParseExcel vs alternative Cell Handler by Andre_br

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