NAME
Spreadsheet::Read - Read the data from a spreadsheet
SYNOPSYS
use Spreadsheet::Read;
my $ref = ReadData ("test.csv", sep => ";");
my $ref = ReadData ("test.sxc");
my $ref = ReadData ("test.ods");
my $ref = ReadData ("test.xls");
my $a3 = $ref->[1]{A3}, "\n"; # content of field A3 of sheet 1
DESCRIPTION
Spreadsheet::Read tries to transparently read *any* spreadsheet and return its content in a universal manner independent of the parsing module that does the actual spreadsheet scanning.
For OpenOffice this module uses Spreadsheet::ReadSXC
For Excel this module uses Spreadsheet::ParseExcel
For CSV this module uses Text::CSV_XS (0.29 or up prefered) or Text_PP (1.05 or up required).
For SquirrelCalc there is a very simplistic built-in parser
Data structure
The data is returned as an array reference:
$ref = [
# Entry 0 is the overall control hash
{ sheets => 2,
sheet => {
"Sheet 1" => 1,
"Sheet 2" => 2,
},
type => "xls",
parser => "Spreadsheet::ParseExcel",
version => 0.26,
},
# Entry 1 is the first sheet
{ label => "Sheet 1",
maxrow => 2,
maxcol => 4,
cell => [ undef,
[ undef, 1 ],
[ undef, undef, undef, undef, undef, "Nugget" ],
],
A1 => 1,
B5 => "Nugget",
},
# Entry 2 is the second sheet
{ label => "Sheet 2",
:
:
To keep as close contact to spreadsheet users, row and column 1 have index 1 too in the cell
element of the sheet hash, so cell "A1" is the same as cell
[1, 1] (column first). To switch between the two, there are two helper functions available: cell2cr ()
and cr2cell ()
.
The cell
hash entry contains unformatted data, while the hash entries with the traditional labels contain the formatted values (if applicable).
The control hash (the first entry in the returned array ref), contains some spreadsheet meta-data. The entry sheet
is there to be able to find the sheets when accessing them by name:
my %sheet2 = %{$ref->[$ref->[0]{sheet}{"Sheet 2"}]};
Functions
- my $ref = ReadData ($source [, option => value [, ... ]]);
- my $ref = ReadData ("file.csv", sep => ',', quote => '"');
- my $ref = ReadData ("file.xls");
- my $ref = ReadData ("file.ods");
- my $ref = ReadData ("file.sxc");
- my $ref = ReadData ("content.xml");
- my $ref = ReadData ($content);
-
Tries to convert the given file, string, or stream to the data structure described above.
Precessing data from a stream or content is supported for Excel (through a File::Temp temporary file), or for XML (OpenOffice), but not for CSV.
ReadSXC does preserve sheet order as of version 0.20.
Currently supported options are:
- cells
-
Control the generation of named cells ("A1" etc). Default is true.
- rc
-
Control the generation of the {cell}[c][r] entries. Default is true.
- attr
-
Control the generation of the {attr}[c][r] entries. Default is false.
- clip
-
If set,
ReadData ()
will remove all trailing lines and columns per sheet that have no visual data. This option is only valid ifcells
is true. The default value is true ifcells
is true, and false otherwise. - sep
-
Set separator for CSV. Default is comma
,
. - quote
-
Set quote character for CSV. Default is
"
. - debug
-
Enable some diagnostic messages to STDERR.
The value determines how much diagnostics are dumped (using Data::Dumper). A value of 9 and higher will dump the entire structure from the backend parser.
In case of CSV parsing,
ReadData ()
will use the first line to auto-detect the separation character, if not explicitly passed, and the end-of-line sequence. This means that if the first line does not contain embedded newlines, the rest of the CSV file can have them, and they will be parsed correctly. - my $cell = cr2cell (col, row)
-
cr2cell ()
converts a(column, row)
pair (1 based) to the traditional cell notation:my $cell = cr2cell ( 4, 14); # $cell now "D14" my $cell = cr2cell (28, 4); # $cell now "AB4"
- my ($col, $row) = cell2cr ($cell)
-
cell2cr ()
converts traditional cell notation to a(column, row)
pair (1 based):my ($col, $row) = cell2cr ("D14"); # returns ( 4, 14) my ($col, $row) = cell2cr ("AB4"); # returns (28, 4)
- my @rows = rows ($ref)
- my @rows = Spreadsheet::Read::rows ($ss->[1])
-
Convert
{cell}
's[column][row]
to a[row][column]
list.Note that the indexes in the returned list are 0-based, where the index in the
{cell}
entry is 1-based.rows ()
is not imported by default, so either specify it in the use argument list, or call it fully qualified. - parses ($format)
- Spreadsheet::Read::parses ("CSV")
-
parses ()
returns Spreadsheet::Read's capability to parse the required format.parses ()
is not imported by default, so either specify it in the use argument list, or call it fully qualified. - my $rs_version = Version ()
- my $v = Spreadsheet::Read::Version ()
-
Returns the current version of Spreadsheet::Read.
Version ()
is not imported by default, so either specify it in the use argument list, or call it fully qualified.
TODO
- Cell attributes
-
Future plans include cell attributes, available as for example:
{ label => "Sheet 1", maxrow => 2, maxcol => 4, cell => [ undef, [ undef, 1 ], [ undef, undef, undef, undef, undef, "Nugget" ], ], attr => [ undef, [ undef, { type => "numeric", fgcolor => "#ff0000", bgcolor => undef, font => "Arial", size => undef, format => "## ##0.00", halign => "right", valign => "top", uline => 0, bold => 0, italic => 0, wrap => 0, merged => 0, hidden => 0, locked => 0, enc => "utf-8", }, ] [ undef, undef, undef, undef, undef, { type => "text", fgcolor => "#e2e2e2", bgcolor => undef, font => "Letter Gothic", size => 15, format => undef, halign => "left", valign => "top", uline => 0, bold => 0, italic => 0, wrap => 0, merged => 0, hidden => 0, locked => 0, enc => "iso8859-1", }, ] A1 => 1, B5 => "Nugget", },
This has now been partially implemented. Excel only.
- Options
-
- Module Options
-
New Spreadsheet::Read options are bound to happen. I'm thinking of an option that disables the reading of the data entirely to speed up an index request (how many sheets/fields/columns). See
xlscat -i
. - Parser options
-
Try to transparently support as many options as the encapsulated modules support regarding (un)formatted values, (date) formats, hidden columns rows or fields etc. These could be implemented like
attr
above but namesmeta
, or just be new values in theattr
hashes.
- Other spreadsheet formats
-
I consider adding any spreadsheet interface that offers a usable API.
- OO-ify
-
Consider making the ref an object, though I currently don't see the big advantage (yet). Maybe I'll make it so that it is a hybrid functional / OO interface.
SEE ALSO
- Text::CSV_XS, Text::CSV_PP
-
http://search.cpan.org/~hmbrand/
A pure perl version is available on http://search.cpan.org/~makamaka/
- Spreadsheet::ParseExcel
-
http://search.cpan.org/~kwitknr/
- Spreadsheet::ReadSXC
-
http://search.cpan.org/~terhechte/
- Spreadsheet::BasicRead
-
http://search.cpan.org/~gng/ for xlscat likewise functionality (Excel only)
- Spreadsheet::ConvertAA
-
http://search.cpan.org/~nkh/ for an alternative set of cell2cr () / cr2cell () pair
- Spreadsheet::Perl
-
http://search.cpan.org/~nkh/ offers a Pure Perl implementation of a spreadsheet engine. Users that want this format to be supported in Spreadsheet::Read are hereby motivated to offer patches. It's not high on my todo-list.
- xls2csv
-
http://search.cpan.org/~ken/ offers an alternative for my
xlscat -c
, in the xls2csv tool, but this tool focusses on character encoding transparency, and requires some other modules.
AUTHOR
H.Merijn Brand, <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 H.Merijn Brand
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.