[R] read.xls question

[Hans-Peter Suter]

2009/3/15 David Scott <d.scott at auckland.ac.nz>:
> On Sat, 14 Mar 2009, Mathew, Abraham T wrote:
> [snip]
> Just checking on CRAN xlsReadWrite is not currently available. There is an
> archived version available however.

Thanks for mentioning.

The reason is that CRAN is strict(er) now with binary submissions
(which is not a bad thing) and the build also broke technically with
R-2.9 because I used a private build variable which is no longer
supported. I adapted the package to use C code and download the
necessary 3rd party binary code from an external e.g. non-CRAN site.
Now I am waiting to get the ok from the 3rd party library provider
before submitting it again and see what is possible.

Besides from the archive you can get the xlsReadWrite package here:
http://treetron.googlepages.com/ (direct link:
http://treetron.googlepages.com/xlsReadWrite_1.3.3.zip). - As an R
newbie (OP) it is maybe better to use something more standard,e.g.
RODBC package, eventually (it's good but you need Perl!) the gdata
package or use plain old .csv files (but watch out fro dropped decimal
places!) .

2009/3/15 Rodrigo Aluizio <r.aluizio at gmail.com>:
> [snip]
> A better alternative to this package is RODBC, which also read excel 2007
> files. Take a look on it at the CRAN web site.

If you mean better because of Excel 2007 then I disagree: xls files
work well with Excel 2007, the format is widely in use and if you
reach their limit (65536 rows by 256 columns) you'd better choose a
database (and use RODBC) imho. Reading natively without depending on
additional layers (driver, perl, COM) benefits too. - If you mean
'more R standard' or OSS then I agree.

Cheers,
Hans-Peter