The first version of xlsReadWrite has been uploaded to CRAN.
-- WHAT IS IT? / R COMMANDS The package allows you to read and write Excel files natively. The supported Format is BIFF 8, i.e. Excel from version 97 up to 2003. read.xls( file, colNames = TRUE, sheet = 1, type = "data.frame", from = 1 ) write.xls( x, file, colNames = TRUE, sheet = 1, from = 1 ) -- PLATFORM / LICENSE Currently the package is only available on Windows (see also below). The license is GPLv2 with an exception to allow the use of a third party library (flexcel). With this exception the package as a whole becomes a non-free package (according to the R license non-free packages are not encouraged but at least possible/tolerated). See also README. -- TECHNICAL BACKGROUND / PRO VERSION: The core of this package is written in Delphi (PASCAL) and uses the R headerfiles for Delphi which I have written earlier (see website below). For the actual read/write operation in excel a proprietary library (Flexcel) is used as I wouldn't be able to write this by myself and because for pascal there are not open source libraries available. (AFAIK. - I am aware of Apache POI (Java), a library for OpenOffice (C, too much work to translate to pascal) and also some older one which don't support BIFF8). I intend to make available (in 2 - 3 weeks) a pro version which has some more functionality and formal support. As an independant developer I am certainly happy if people will check this version out or consider a contribution, but it is not my idea to play "silly shareware games", the open source version works well and I am commited to support it as far as I can. -- OTHER PLATFORMS (Linux/Mac) Technically xlsReadWrite could be crossplatform. Flexcel already has a Kylix version, which means that it could be made to run on Linux almost immediately. The IMO better way would be to port the code to *FreePascal*: this fits better in the open source world of R and this also would make it possible to supply a Mac version. - While I started to port it, I didn't succeed in the 2 days I have given me. - If there are any "pascal-lovers" out there I would be very interested to get in touch, it would be more fun to do it together than to try all by myself. -- MORE INFOS / CONTACT: At http://treetron.googlepages.com/ you will find an additional file with testdata/-scripts and more infos (contact, bugs (currently nothing), suggestions and todos). I hope you enjoy using this package (I certainly do...) and am looking forward to any feedback you might have. Best regards, Hans-Peter [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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