http://support.microsoft.com/kb/215591/
> ID,NAME > 666,MS Don' B H8N --- Joey K Tuttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 15:29 -0400 2006/05/16, Miller, Raul D wrote: > >Joey K Tuttle wrote: > >> OK, MS (not bashing women :) Excel - the problem is, > >> one often doesn't have the choice "not to use it" in > >> the sense that people send files exported from Excel... > > > >And sometimes those files are broken or virus infected, > >etc. > > > >When the files are well formed, typically a person could > >use openoffice calc to read them and re-export them in > >a more convenient format. > > > >Alternatively, you could ask the original user for a copy > >of that the file in some other format. > > > >I've gotten quite a bit of mileage from asking people to > >save the file as CSV. In the typical case, CSV is more > >than adequate. > > > >CSV tends to be much easier to process programmatically > >(assuming you aren't using some simple thing in excel > >for your program -- a reasonable assumption for the case > >where the user is exporting the file and you are working > >with it in J). > > > >Failing that, asking the user to save the spreadsheet as > >xml retains all excel features might be easier to deal with > >than the default binary format. However, this is not as > >simple as CSV. > > > > Raul, > > The files that caused me troubles were requested and > supplied in text or csv format, not binary - the fact > that the last line of those files is sans EOL was > always an annoyance (especially if using cut in j ...) > > I just did a little test to see if MS Excel still saves > files that way and indeed files saved as .txt .csv .htm > .prn and .dif all end unceremoniously with no EOL (in > my case no CR since I have Mac Excel). I used my other > bug as a test example - here is the complete .csv file: > > ID,NAME > 666,MS > > (of course this example does have an EOL on both lines) > > I learned that the behavior of Excel has changed when > trying to open the above file - it used to say "Invalid > File" - now it says, "SYLK: file format is not valid." > and then crashes when you acknowledge the error dialog. > I suppose that may mean that they are moving towards a > fix for the bug that has been in every version of Excel > I have looked at.... Long live SYLK. > > - joey > > PS - my version of Excel doesn't include save as XML. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
