[R] help to ... import the data from Excel

[Hans-Peter Suter]

2011/11/15 jim holtman <jholtman at gmail.com>:
> Part of my problem has to do with getting through the corporate
> firewall to access the other program I have to download to use it.  I
> just tried today and this is what I got:
>
>> xls.getshlib()
> Loading required package: tools
> --- xls.getshlib running... ---
>  - download.file from
> 'http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2602516/swissrpkg/bin/win32/shlib/xlsReadWrite_1.5.4_dll.zip'
> (timeout: 60)
> Error in copyOrDownload(url) :
>  downloading 'http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2602516/swissrpkg/bin/win32/shlib/xlsReadWrite_1.5.4_dll.zip'
> to 'C:\DOCUME~1\kon9407\LOCALS~1\Temp\RtmpQR6rWi/xlsReadWrite.zip' failed
> In addition: Warning message:
> In download.file(url, fpzip.temp, method = "internal", quiet = TRUE,  :
>  cannot open: HTTP status was '403 Forbidden'

Yes unfortunately quite some people had problems downloading the shlib
because dropbox (where I host the file) is being blocked b/c of
corporate policies. I am working on a successor, xlReadWrite (which
supports xlsx, 64 bit and probably Macs) where I try to find a better
solution (probably a mirror on my own server).

> I think when I was using it in the past, I had some problem with
> writing to multiple output sheets so I could create tabs on the
> workbook, but not really sure what was happening at the time.  I have
> had better luck with XLConnect in creating tabbed workbooks.

Writing multiple tabs was never supported in the free version (only in
Pro). XLConnect certainly looks good and also has the advantage that
it is FOSS, something I cannot do because of the usage of a
proprietary library.

Cheers,
Hans-Peter