[R-pkgs] New CRAN Package: WriteXLS

[Marc Schwartz]

A new package called WriteXLS (Version 1.5.0), containing a single  
function of the same name, is now available via CRAN. The package is  
made available under the GPL, version >=2.

The function is based upon a Perl script that I have previously posted  
on r-help, now wrapped in R for convenience. It provides a cross- 
platform function to create Excel 2003 (XLS) files from one or more  
data frames. Each data frame will be written to a separate named  
worksheet in the Excel spreadsheet. The worksheet name will be the  
name of the data frame it contains.

The package requires that Perl and several specific Perl modules are  
installed in order to function. These modules, which may already be  
installed on systems with Perl installed, include:

   OLE::Storage_Lite
   Parse::RecDescent
   Getopt::Long
   File::Basename
   Spreadsheet::WriteExcel
   Encode
   File::Glob
   Text::CSV_XS


With the exception of the last three modules listed, for convenience  
all are included in the CRAN package and will be made available by  
adding the installed package path for these modules to the Perl @INC  
array.

The last three modules (Encode, File::Glob and Text::CSV_XS) are 'XS'  
based Perl modules, meaning that they call external C routines. Thus,  
they are not included as they require local compilation using the  
particular version of Perl installed on the user's system.

As a result, only source versions of the WriteXLS package will be made  
available. This is because the examples on the function help page will  
not run without Perl and all of these modules being available on the  
user's system. Hence the package will presently fail 'R CMD check' on  
CRAN.

For more information on installing source packages from CRAN, please  
see:

   http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.html#Installing- 
packages

WriteXLS is being maintained using R-Forge at:

   http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/writexls

Please feel free to contact me directly with questions and comments.

Many thanks to Prof. Brian Ripley for his assistance with the testing  
of this package prior to release.

Thanks,

Marc Schwartz