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Re: use of xlsread in Octave


From: PhilipNienhuis
Subject: Re: use of xlsread in Octave
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 12:20:13 -0700 (PDT)

Sergei Steshenko-2 wrote
> --- On Mon, 5/13/13, Philip Nienhuis <

> pr.nienhuis@

> > wrote:
> .
> :
> <snip>
> :
>> > Regarding 'xlsread'.
>> >
>> > There stand alone Strawberry Perl: http://strawberryperl.com/ . And
>> there is even a
>> portable one, e.g.:
>> http://strawberryperl.com/download/5.16.3.1/strawberry-perl-5.16.3.1-32bit-portable.zip
>> ,
>> http://strawberryperl.com/download/5.16.3.1/strawberry-perl-5.16.3.1-64bit-portable.zip
>> .
>> >
>> > It even comes with 'gcc'.
>> >
>> > There is a whole bunch of Excel related modules:
>> http://search.cpan.org/search?query=excel&mode=all
>> -> 
>> http://search.cpan.org/~jmcnamara/Spreadsheet-ParseExcel-0.59/lib/Spreadsheet/ParseExcel.pm
>> .
>> >
>> > If the modules work, translating format from Perl data
>> structures into Octave struct is trivial.
>> >
>> > And Octave has 'system' function, i.e. this whole Perl
>> stuff is neatly kept separate from Octave.
>> >
>> > And on UNIX(-like) boxes Perl is present by default.
>> And Perl can trivially be built from source on UNIX(-like)
>> boxes and can trivially be built portable - just in case
>> default Perl is not new enough. I am routinely building
>> portable Perl on my Linux box.
>> 
>> Thanks for the overview.
>> Besides Perl there exist many more software environments
>> offering 
>> reading from Excel files. Python, Scilab, R, you name it.
>> One can safely 
>> conclude that there is great demand for that.
>> 
>> Anyway, have you tried your suggestions? Do you have:
>> 
>> - Any benchmarks? Are your suggestions faster?
>> 
>> - How flexible & robust are your suggestions?
>>    * What happens with merged cells?
>>    * What happens to formulas in cells (do we
>> get the evaluated formula 
>> results, the formulas as strings, or cached values? do we
>> have any 
>> choice at all?)
>>    * Do they read .xls (both BIFF5 and
>> BIFF8), .xlsx, .dbf, .xlsm, .csv, 
>> .wk1, etc etc?
>>    * What happens with erroneous results in
>> cells?
>>    * What happens in case of user error?
>> (like requesting more data than 
>> available in the file, or requesting reading from
>> non-existent sheets)
>> 
>> - How maintainable is it? Are upstream maintainers
>> sufficiently responsive?
>> 
>> - And of course, can you use Perl as a replacement for
>> xlswrite?
>> I see little use to be able to only read spreadsheets.
>> There's 
>> definitely demand for writing spreadsheets as well.
>>  From my own experience I can tell you that implementing
>> flexible and 
>> robust writing to spreadsheet files gets you into the next
>> levels of 
>> complexity, not to mention trade-offs between flexibility
>> and speed.
>> 
>> It would be nice to compare your benchmark results with the
>> present io 
>> package support for spreadsheet I/O.
>> I'm not quite against an overhaul of xlsread and friends,
>> and/or adding 
>> another interface, yet I think alternatives should have at
>> least 
>> comparable flexibility, robustness, speed, and
>> maintainability. Or at 
>> least if one these assets is lacking it should be
>> compensated for by the 
>> others (choice, remember, that's why I offer a number of
>> interfaces 
>> rather than just one).
>> 
>> And last but not least, alternatives should be
>> "Matlab-compatible". That 
>> in itself makes for a lot of complications.
>> 
>> Philip
> 
> There also *write modules.
> 
> I don't use Excel data, but I know the modules exist for years and are
> apparently maintained - if you look, they are pretty new, have a lot of
> good reviews.
> 
> Yet another article on the Perl-Excel interaction:
> http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/12/perl-and-excel/ .

Thanks Sergei, when I get more time I'll look into it to see whether it can
somehow be incorporated in the io package. Hopefully this doesn't introduce
more dependencies (especially for Windows/MinGW/MSVC systems).

Because I'm no Perl expert I could use some assistance when that time comes,
notably with making it build when the io package is being installed.

Philip




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