/ 
Data-Grid-0.01_01
River stage zero No dependents
/ Data::Grid

NAME

Data::Grid - Incremental read-only (for now) access to grid-based data

VERSION

Version 0.01_01

SYNOPSIS

use Data::Grid;

# Have the parser guess the kind of file, using defaults.

my $grid = Data::Grid->parse('arbitrary.xls');

# or

my $grid = Data::Grid->parse(
    source  => 'arbitrary.csv', # or xls, or xlsx, or filehandle...
    header  => 1,               # first line is a header everywhere
    fields  => [qw(a b c)],     # override field header
    options => \%options,       # driver-specific options
);

# Each object contains one or more tables.

for my $table ($grid->tables) {

    # Each table has one or more rows.

    while (my $row = $table->next) {

        # The columns can be dereferenced as an array,

        my @cols = @$row; # or just $row->columns

        # or, if header is present or fields were named in the
        # constructor, as a hash.

        my %cols = %$row;

        # Now we can do stuff.
    }
}

DESCRIPTION

Problem 1

You have a mountain of data files from two decades of using MS Office (and other) products, and you want to collate their contents into someplace sane.

Problem 2

The files are in numerous different formats, and a consistent interface would really cut down on the effort of extracting them.

Problem 3

You've looked at Data::Table and Spreadsheet::Read, but deemed their table-at-a-time strategy to be inappropriate for your purposes.

The goal of Data::Grid is to provide an extensible, uniform, object-oriented interface to all kinds of grid-shaped data. A key behaviour I'm after is to perform an incremental read over a potentially large data source, so as not to unnecessarily gobble up system resources.

DEVELOPER RELEASE

Odds are I will probably decide to change the interface at some point before locking in, and I don't want to guarantee consistency yet. If I do, and you use this, your code will probably break.

Suffice to say this module is ALPHA QUALITY at best.

METHODS

parse $file | %params

The principal way to instantiate a Data::Grid object is through the parse factory method. This method detects

tables

Retrieve the tables

EXTENSION INTERFACE

new

This new is only part of the extension interface. It is a basic utility constructor intended to take an already-parsed object and parameters and proxy them.

table_class

Returns the class to use for instantiating tables. Defaults to Data::Grid::Table, which is an abstract class. Override this method with your own value for extensions.

row_class

Returns the class to use for instantiating rows. Defaults to Data::Grid::Row.

cell_class

Returns the class to use for instantiating cells. Defaults to Data::Grid::Cell, again an abstract class.

AUTHOR

Dorian Taylor, <dorian at cpan.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-data-grid at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Data-Grid. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Data::Grid

You can also look for information at:

SEE ALSO

Text::CSV_XS, Spreadsheet::ReadExcel, Spreadsheet::XLSX, Data::Table

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2010 Dorian Taylor.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.