This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
To: Ian <ian@isasports.com>, modperl <modperl@apache.org>
From: John Whitnack <jwhitnack@glja.com>
Subject: Re: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:44:56 -0700
Ian wrote:
> The campus phone system has a 911 database that is in Microsoft Excel
> format, and they want to be able to take that information, and show
> it on a webpage, either via a search form, or in one big table. The
> problem is, they want to do it dynamically...the web server needs to
> yank it down from a samba share (or ftp), parse it, show it, and
> terminate.
I have never used it, but I have heard that Spreadsheet::ParseExcel is
good at getting Excel file into a Perl script. If you every need to
go the other way (Perl->Excel) i have used (and highly recommend)
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel. Both of these can be found on CPAN.
===
To: <modperl@apache.org>
From: Mark Fowler <mark@twoshortplanks.com>
Subject: Re: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 22:45:25 +0000 (GMT)
On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Tom Servo wrote:
> Hopefully someone else knows of a CPAN module to work with Excel files,
> though...
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel and Spreadsheet::WriteExcel? Both have ::Simple
versions too.
I've used them in the past and it's Worked For Me (tm)
===
To: "'Ian'" <ian@isasports.com>
From: Charles Day <Charles.Day@frontstep.com>
Subject: RE: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 17:46:18 -0500
If you couldn't convince the bosses to db this, you could use .cvs (tab
delimited) instead of .xls, ftp it to your webserver every (cron) and have
perl parse it out. People love their xls and access files don't they:)
How about dumping the data into MS-SQL and have your db write the .xls file
every (schedule). Then you can query your db any way you like from your
website, and they can have their nice little xls file too:)
Charles
===
From: Ian [mailto:ian@isasports.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 5:31 PM
To: modperl@apache.org
Subject: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
In the wide and wonderful world of Microsoft and Linux, I'm in the
need of an interesting soloution.
I'm presenting this to the list because I've ran out of good ideas.
The campus phone system has a 911 database that is in Microsoft Excel
format, and they want to be able to take that information, and show
it on a webpage, either via a search form, or in one big table. The
problem is, they want to do it dynamically...the web server needs to
yank it down from a samba share (or ftp), parse it, show it, and
terminate.
I'm really **really** new at anything perl wise...so I haven't the
foggiest clue as to where I should start.
I've finally gotten Apache/Mod Perl/Mod SSL installed, and working
properly. Are there any modules for pulling information from an
excel sheet? How about modules that keep the overworked admin from
insanity?
===
To: mod_perl
From: "David Kaufman" <dkaufman@nac.net>
Subject: Re: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 17:55:00 -0500
"Tom Servo" <tomservo@cnw.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Ian wrote:
> > The campus phone system has a 911 database that is in Microsoft Excel
> > format, and they want to be able to take that information, and show
> > it on a webpage, either via a search form, or in one big table. The
> > problem is, they want to do it dynamically...the web server needs to
> > yank it down from a samba share (or ftp), parse it, show it, and
> > terminate.
>
> [...]
> Hopefully someone else knows of a CPAN module to work with Excel files,
> though...
i count at least 5:
http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=module&query=Excel
i haven't used any of them, though. i've used Spreadsheet::WriteExcel, but
it only *writes* Excel files, it doesn't read them (hence the name).
it looks like
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel
http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Spreadsheet-ParseExcel
or Spreadsheet::ParseExcel::Simple
http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Spreadsheet-ParseExcel-Simple
should do what you're looking for
===
To: modperl@apache.org
From: Robin Berjon <robin@knowscape.com>
Subject: Re: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 00:10:14 +0100
On Thursday 29 November 2001 23:31, Ian wrote:
> In the wide and wonderful world of Microsoft and Linux, I'm in the
> need of an interesting soloution.
>
> The campus phone system has a 911 database that is in Microsoft Excel
> format, and they want to be able to take that information, and show
> it on a webpage, either via a search form, or in one big table. The
> problem is, they want to do it dynamically...the web server needs to
> yank it down from a samba share (or ftp), parse it, show it, and
> terminate.
Another option than those that have been presented here would be to use
XML::SAXDriver::Excel. It is imho superior to using some of the modules that
parse Excel directly because it is SAX based. That means that you have a lot
more power in your hands, and that if your data source move to something else
(eg CSV, database, etc...) you'll be able to use nearly the same code.
Furthermore, SAX is a simple, flexible, well-thought out, and well-documented
API.
===
To: Ian <ian@isasports.com>
From: Medi Montaseri <medi@CyberShell.com>
Subject: Re: Perl and Microsoft Excel?
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 16:05:23 -0800 (PST)
Two suggestions:
One: drop the excel idea right now or you'll find out its not the right
solution at a later time. Use LDAP instead. Then write a CGI (as you
really don't need Mod-Perl) for all kinds of queries and an admin view
for a maintainer to maintain it.
Two: ask your spreadsheet maintainer to save the sheet in CSV (Comma
Seperated Value) format someplace where a CGI can access it. Say
www:/home/directory/list.csv
Then use Samba and on the maintainer's windows machine have a network
mapped drive, where this file will be saved as, say z:\list.csv, where
z: is mapped to \\www\directory
Then use Text::CSV.pm perl package to access this list.csv
You are done....go home now..
PS: you might have to convert the '\r\n' to '\n' as samba does not
change the line break symbols as it moves it from Windows to Unix.
===