Excel csv with Perl

ichabod has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

How do I open an excel csv file within perl? I use an IE7 where perl is running from unix (part of the network).

Tried:
print "Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachement; filename=test.xls\n\n";
print $excel;

This opens the excel application with the csv file, except that the csv was not properly formatted according to the comma. One line, including the commas, goes to one cell. If you open the csv file from windows, it is correctly formatted.

Thanks...Ichabod

Comment on Excel csv with Perl

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Re: Excel csv with Perl by atemon (Chaplain) on Sep 18, 2007 at 02:58 UTC
Content-type `application/vnd.ms-excel` is used when we send the real excel sheet like one created with Spreadsheet::WriteExcel. If you are sending CSV content, try using "text/csv" as content-type. `print "Content-type: text/csv\n"; #Changed content-type to CSV print "Content-Disposition: attachement; filename=test.xls\n\n"; print $excel;` [download] Hope this works. --VC There are three sides to any argument..... your side, my side and the right side.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Excel csv with Perl by ichabod (Novice) on Sep 19, 2007 at 05:44 UTC
No effect. Still using excel but one record is still in one cell. Thanks...	[reply]
Re: Excel csv with Perl by n8g (Sexton) on Sep 18, 2007 at 02:35 UTC
It might help to see some sample output of the $excel variable?	[reply]
Re^2: Excel csv with Perl by ichabod (Novice) on Sep 19, 2007 at 05:49 UTC
Sample of one record as follows: ,XXX,YYY,terryc ,ZZZZZ,Palm Road,9 ,TTTT,UUU ,-3.01,-0.30,0.00,0.00,0.00,0.00,-0.30,1,SSS, ,RRR, ,QQQQQ , , , , ,33318 ,20040113,7711, Thanks...	[reply]
Re: Excel csv with Perl by SFLEX (Chaplain) on Sep 18, 2007 at 09:47 UTC
you may need to set STDOUT to binary mode. `binmode STDOUT; print "Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel\n"; print "Content-Disposition: attachement; filename=test.xls\n\n"; print $excel;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Excel csv with Perl by ichabod (Novice) on Sep 19, 2007 at 05:42 UTC
No effect. Perl is run under unix, so it should have no effect. Thanks...	[reply]
Re^3: Excel csv with Perl by SFLEX (Chaplain) on Sep 19, 2007 at 12:18 UTC
If you still have problems, try a module to phrase the Excel file. "Note: An Excel file is comprised of binary data. binmode"	[reply]
Re: Excel csv with Perl by ichabod (Novice) on Sep 21, 2007 at 01:28 UTC
Folks... Thanks to all. Found the solution. Just change the test.xls to test.csv and it is formatting the csv correctly.	[reply]