RE: octave workshop

[Roy Menachem]

Hi,
Thanks you all for the answers, I downloaded the 3.4.2 for windows, and it 
seems to work great (including the xls functions).
I also need to install the 3.4.2 version on linux, is it possible to use the 
same download? 
If not can someone please give me a link to version which works properly? I 
need version 3.4 and up to support the xls functions(I prefer the also version 
3.4.2 which I now it works).

Thanks a lot 
Roy

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of Carn? Draug
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 6:01 PM
To: Roy Menachem
Cc: address@hidden; Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso
Subject: Re: octave workshop

2011/10/4 Roy Menachem <address@hidden>:
> Hi,
> I m working on windows 7 with octave 3.2.4 and i need to read xlsx file with 
> multiple worksheets (not csv file), I have installed 2 packages:
>  pkg install io-1.0.15.tar.gz
> and
> pkg install windows-1.1.0.tar.gz
>
> After installing the io package I got the message:
> dependencies where unsatisfied: io needs octave >=3.4.0
>
> What else should I do to be able to work on xlsx files with the xls functions?
>
> Thanks
> Roy

You can

1 - download an older version of io package that doesn't require octave 3.4 
(see all packages releases here 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/files/Octave%20Forge%20Packages/Individual%20Package%20Releases/
)
2 - update your octave installation (current stable release is 3.4.2).
Since you are using windows, you can get the source from 
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/download.html and compile it or you can use 
cygwin
3 - instal the current package with the -nodeps flag. You'll then loose the old 
and buggy textread and csv/dlm-read/write functions

Here's the changes for the latest version of io (to consider updating one or 
the other):

> io-1.0.15 is primarily a bug fix release and a snapshot / wrap-up of 
> current development status (some still a bit experimental).
> It mainly comprises:
>
> - A number of bug fixes (incl. a few serious ones, notably with 
> .ods/OOo Calc);
>
> - Some mainly cosmetic improvements to existing code; less verbosity;
>
> - pch2mat (reading & transforming Nastran PCH files, contributed by B.
> Oytun Peksel);
>
> - object2json.m (creating a json description string of objects, 
> contributed by Daniel Torre). This was already silently introduced in 
> io-1.0.14;
>
> - A scripted troubleshooting / classpath setup tool for spreadsheet 
> I/O support (chk_spreadsheet_support.m);
>
> - Experimental OXS support (OpenXLS) for reading Excel xls (BIFF8).
> OpenXLS is -let's say- a little bit lacking: For reading it is faster 
> than JXL. However, while OXS write support has been coded (and works) 
> I had to disable it as the OXS Java classes won't release the file 
> handle so Octave will hang upon closing :-( I'm stuck with this so I 
> just release it as-is;
>
> - Experimental UNO support, i.e. invoking OpenOffice.org (or clones 
> like
> LibreOffice) behind the scenes to read spreadsheet files, much like 
> ActiveX/COM for MS-Excel. This is also based on Java.
>
> The first time you use UNO, OOo has to be loaded and you'll have to be 
> patient, but once loaded (and in the OS cache) you'll see the pros:
>   --* Blazingly fast;
>   --* Much lower Java memory usage as OOo loads the spreadsheet in its 
> own memory chunk (not Octave's) => much bigger spreadsheet capacity;
>   --* You can read *all* formats supported by OOo: .ods, .xls, .csv, 
> .xlsx, .sxc, .dbf, Lotus wk1, Quattro Pro, ......; and it doesn't 
> really matter whether xlsopen of odsopen is used...
>
> Of course all this wonderful stuff comes at a prize:
>   --* After closing the spreadsheet file (odsclose, xlsclose) ALL OOo 
> invocations will be closed, also those started outside Octave. This is 
> due to "the way OpenOffice works" (quoted from OOo dev forum), 
> especially through Java. There are other ways to close OOo but they'll 
> hang Octave;
>   --* The Java UNO classes supplied with e.g. LibreOffice aren't kept 
> quite up-to-date with the main program. As a consequence, with e.g., 
> LibreOffice 3.4 the main LO window will pop up (it can't be hidden). I 
> filed a bug report for this
> (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40991) but I haven't 
> seen it being picked up yet. Another example: while LO 3.3.1's row 
> capacity was already > 10^6, it took until LO 3.4 before this capacity 
> was implemented in the Java UNO classes.
> Like with OXS, I'm a bit stuck here - all this has to be fixed upstream.