[R] Excel *.xls files, RODBC

[Gabor Grothendieck]

Rolf Turner <rolf <at> math.unb.ca> writes:

: 
: I gather from reading the back-issues of r-help that it should be
: possible (modulo a number of caveats) to read an excel (yuck!) file
: into R using RODBC.  I have obtained and installed ODBC and the RODBC
: package, but cannot for the life of me figure out how to go about
: it.  Can anyone give me a simple recipe?
: 
: I have an excel file on cdrom, say:
: 
: 	/mnt/cdrom/melvin.xls
: 
: I have started R and loaded the RODBC package.  I want to create
: a data frame ``melvin'' by reading in /mnt/cdrom/melvin.xls.
: What (in monosyllables --- step by step) do I do next?

The xlhtml program at

  http://freshmeat.net/projects/xlhtml/

can not only convert .xls to .html but also to .csv using something
like:

  xlhtml -te -xc:1-10 -csv