[Rd] odbcConnectExcel on non-Windows?

[spencerg]

Dear Marc: 


      In spite of your efforts to help me, I still get an "F" in your 
"WriteXLS" class.  Consider the following: 


 > library(WriteXLS)
 > help(pac=WriteXLS)
 > testPerl()
Perl found.

The following Perl modules were not found on this system:

Text::CSV_XS

If you have more than one Perl installation, be sure the correct one was 
used here.

Otherwise, please install the missing modules. See the package INSTALL 
file for more information.

##########################

      Might it be feasible to include the required Perl modules with the 
"WriteXLS" package?  Then you would not have to rely on fools like me 
not knowing how to get the preferred copy of any required Perl modules. 


      On my Windows platform (Vista), I got RODBC to work for 
"writeFindFn2xls" in the "sos" package.  Unfortunately, the "daily 
checks" on R-Forge failed on non-Windows platforms.  When I saw that, I 
asked R-Devel for help.  Dirk suggested I try "WriteXLS";  see below. 


      What do you suggest? 


      If I don't hear an answer, I propose to NOT add "WriteXLS" to the 
"DESCRIPTION" file but rather to modify the code for "writeFindFn2xls" 
so that on non-Windows platforms, it tests to see if "WriteXLS" is 
installed.  If no, it will issue an appropriate error message.  If it 
finds "WriteXLS", it will try to use it. 


      However, if you have other suggestions, I'd be pleased to hear them. 


      Best Wishes,
      Spencer Graves


 > sessionInfo()
R version 2.9.1 (2009-06-26)
i386-pc-mingw32

locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United 
States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United 
States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base    

other attached packages:
[1] sos_1.0-5      brew_1.0-3     WriteXLS_1.8.1
#######################################

Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> On 9 August 2009 at 12:04, spencerg wrote:
> |       What should I do regarding code to write an Excel file in a 
> | non-Windows platform? 
> [...]
> |       What would you suggest we do about this? 
> [...] 
> |       If there is a better way to handle this, I would like to know. 
>
> http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/WriteXLS/index.html
>
> Portable (in the sense of used by Perl, Python, ... or other scripting
> engines) solutions have existed for a dozen years.  We have a wrapper to Perl
> code for a long time too (having been of the initial discussions that lead to
> Greg's initial read.xls from the gdata package).
>
> Dirk
>
>