Dear list members
I am pleased to annonce that I have just finished a native Excel
reader/writer. It's wrapped up in two packages: either
"xlsReadWrite" (open
source) or the slightly beefed-up "xlsReadWritePro" (shareware).
Working
with Excel data is now as easy as writing read.xls and write.xls.
Some more details:
- Infos and download: http://treetron.googlepages.com
- for detailed documentation pls. download and see: help files, DESCRIPTION
and README.
- I set up a newsgroup for technical questions and feedback:
http://groups.google.ch/group/supportR
- while it could be ported to other platforms, currently it is WINDOWS only
(see technical below)
- native means, that the file will be read/written in binary form (without
needing Excel). The format is Excel version 97 - 2003
- xlsReadWrite and xlsReadWritePro both are powerful:
- handle data.frames and matrices/vectors of type double, integer,
logical, character
- allow to select sheets
- support colNames and a title
- lets you skip rows at the beginning of the file
- the Pro version additionally:
- lets you select subdata (columns, rows or pick cells) in Excel
- can have colClasses (currently mainly for "rownames", more, e.g.
string-dates to come)
- has xls.sheet: insert, select, delete sheets
- has xls.open and xls.close: work with an xls-object in memory
- has xls.info: gives information about file
- Technical/License:
- it's written in Delphi (Pascal) and therefore Windows only
- the open source compiler FreePascal potentially allows to compile for
other platforms
(http://www.freepascal.org/wiki/index.php/Platform_list).
[while I am interested in this for reasons of completeness, it's
unlikely that I will
look into it soon without somebody funding. The Linux people probably
won't care anyway
and just for macs, hmm, there are still much other things I'd like to
look into]
- it's written by using the third party library
www.tmssoftware.com/flexcel.htm.
- the open source version is GPLv2 and has an exception to allow linking
flexcel. Due
to this exception the package as a whole is non-free and non-standard.
- the shareware package has a trial period which allows to check out for
anybody for free.
After the trial it has to be licenced for a small fee (or you can
reinstall it..., but I
hope not many people will do that!). It is also possible to license the
source code.
Suggestions, bug reports and other comments are very welcome. If possible I
try
to incorporate them in the gold version.
Best regards,
Hans-Peter
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> > - the open source compiler FreePascal potentially allows to compile for > other platforms > (http://www.freepascal.org/wiki/index.php/Platform_list). > [while I am interested in this for reasons of completeness, it's > unlikely that I will > look into it soon without somebody funding. The Linux people probably > won't care anyway > and just for macs, hmm, there are still much other things I'd like to > look into] >I got an email which kind of said that my use of "Linux people" is disrespectful and could imply that people who use Linux couldn't afford to supply fundings. It is *absolutely* not meant like this, I personally have Linux machines (Debian, now Ubuntu) but currently use Windows more. My server is Suse. I just wanted to express, that on linux afaik the people don't have the data in xls-format and prefer the text format. It's from hearsay/newsgroup/and my impression from a R-course. On Macs I personally know people who do a PhD and have their data in Excel. So I though, they could be interested. English is not my native language. Sorry for writing in a sloppy way. Hans-Peter [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
Hans-Peter wrote:> Dear list members > > I am pleased to annonce that I have just finished a native Excel > reader/writer. It's wrapped up in two packages: either "xlsReadWrite" (open > source) or the slightly beefed-up "xlsReadWritePro" (shareware). Working > with Excel data is now as easy as writing read.xls and write.xls. > > Some more details: > > - Infos and download: http://treetron.googlepages.com > - for detailed documentation pls. download and see: help files, DESCRIPTION > and README. > - I set up a newsgroup for technical questions and feedback: > http://groups.google.ch/group/supportR > > - while it could be ported to other platforms, currently it is WINDOWS only > (see technical below)<SNIP> If I understand it right, the the flexcel library includes the components for kylix as well - therefore I would try to compile it for Linux, I would suggest to use CrossKylix to compile it. Rainer <SNIP> -- Rainer M. Krug, Dipl. Phys. (Germany), MSc Conservation Biology (UCT) Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology University of Stellenbosch Matieland 7602 South Africa Tel: +27 - (0)72 808 2975 (w) Fax: +27 - (0)21 808 3304 Cell: +27 - (0)83 9479 042 email: RKrug at sun.ac.za Rainer at krugs.de
Hans-Peter, In my office, files are stored on an EMC shared server which is used by both our Windows PC's and our Linux machines. So it is common for us to process spreadsheet data using R on Linux. A Linux version of your package would be very welcome. Thanks! -- David Brahm (brahm at alum.mit.edu) P.S. No, I'm not volunteering to port it :-)