On Fri, 8 Mar 2002 22:11:45 -0600, Teresa Raymond wrote:
>Are there macperl modules to help input data into excel or access?
>Can we even get access on a mac? A potential client suggested excel
>or access because they want to do a lot of statistical analysis
MS Access is PC only.
If you only need to get data out of perl and into a new spreadsheet,
look into SpreadSheet::WriteExcel. That is a pure Perl module, so it
ought to work on the newest MacPerl (beta) too -- you need (a recent
version of) Parse::RecDescent, which precludes using the old MacPerl.
If, instead, you need to update an existing file with some new data,
then indeed a real database might be the way to go -- with DBI, of
course. BTW I noticed that there is a module DBD::Excel on CPAN (but
still alpha). Oh, it works based on Spreadsheet::WriteExcel,
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel, and SQL::Statement. IIRC these are all pure
Perl modules, so it most definitely sounds interesting.
>but
>since I don't know re: mySQL either, it's hard to know what to
>recommend and what would have the fastest learning curve. Also, I
>don't know what their server is. Any thoughts or help would be great.
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. mySQL is a SQL
server program, it doesn't have any user interface by itself. It only
stores and retrieves the data. People shouldn't have to learn anything,
because it's none of their business. It's the programmer who provides
an interface, commonmy a web interface.
But I would not recommend reinventing the nontrivial wheels of
statistical analysis, so I would rather recommend delivering the final
data as Excel files, since that is what they are used to. There is a
module Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::FromDB on CPAN, which would allow you to
collect your data in a database, any database, and convert it into an
Excel file as a final stage.
--
Bart.
