[R-SIG-Mac] Problems with read.xls on Mac OS X 10.6.3

[Erich Studerus]

Hello

I'm trying to read an Excel-File with the read.xls function from gdata 
(Version 2.7.1) on Mac with OS X 10.6.3, but get the following error 
message:
Can't load 
'/Users/.../Library/R/2.10/library/gdata/perl/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/Compress/Raw/Zlib/Zlib.bundle' 
for module Compress::Raw::Zlib: 
/Users/.../Library/R/2.10/library/gdata/perl/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/Compress/Raw/Zlib/Zlib.bundle: 
no appropriate 64-bit architecture (see "man perl" for running in 32-bit 
mode) at 
/System/Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level/DynaLoader.pm line 
207.
  at /Users/.../Library/R/2.10/library/gdata/perl/Archive/Zip.pm line 12
Compilation failed in require at 
/Users/.../Library/R/2.10/library/gdata/perl/Archive/Zip.pm line 12.

I did not have this problem on a Mac with OX X 10.5.8. It seems that perl 
must be running in 32bit mode, but is running in 64bit mode by default on my 
system. The same problem has been discussed on R mailing list, but nobody 
has provided a solution as far as I can see:
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/gdata-td1477079.html

I tried to change the default perl to version 5.8 by following the 
instructions under "man perl" but still get the same error message. Can 
anybody help me out?

Regards,
Erich