[R] Writing Excel (.xls) files on non-Windows OSs using Perl

[Marc Schwartz]

On Mon, 2007-07-09 at 16:42 +0300, Hans-Peter wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 2007/7/8, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at comcast.net>:
> > [snip]
> > There exists the xlsReadWrite package on CRAN by Hans-Peter Suter, which
> > is restricted to Windows, since it utilizes the non-FOSS MS Office API
> > to write the Excel formats.
> 
> The non-FOSS API is not the problem(#) but its implementation is:
> 
> The 3rd party library I use is written in Pascal and supports Delphi
> and Kylix. Kylix would allow to port the package to Linux but as Kylix
> has unfortunately been abandoned by CodeGear (Borland) I am not
> ready/interested to spend my time on this dead road. Though it
> probably could be done quickly.
> 
> A much more interesting way is to port the package using FreePascal.
> --> I plan to do this since long but...
> --> Maybe someone fluent on Linux and FreePascal could have a look at
> the pascal header files (treetron.googlepages.com) and make the demos
> run on Linux..., that would be great and speed up an eventual
> xlsReadWrite port!

Thanks for the clarification.

However, I think that if you are going to pursue a cross-platform
solution, providing source code requiring compilation (as opposed to a
pre-compiled Windows binary), you should consider what the installation
requirements for your package would then be.

If you are going to take the step of requiring a prospective end-user to
have a particular Pascal compiler in place, you may as well have the
requirement for a Perl interpreter and associated packages. Since Perl
is widely available and you are more likely to find Perl-fluent coders
as opposed to Pascal-fluent coders (eg. I have not used Pascal since the
late 80's), I would urge you to consider Perl as a future substrate for
your functions.

While compiled code will run faster than interpreted code, for these
types of file I/O functions, I am not sure that you lose much with Perl
from a performance standpoint and you certainly gain the eyes of a wider
audience with respect to use, debugging and enhancements.

To that end, you (or any other interested parties) are free to utilize
my code in any way you deem appropriate. I did not state this in my
original post, but I make the code available under GPL(v2), freeing you
from any restrictions in its use, including your "Pro" version, as long
as you make the source available in a fashion consistent with the GPL
requirements.

Regards,

Marc Schwartz