Re: Looking for IDL code to read Excel spreadsheet

[mperrin+news(at)arkham.berkeley.edu (Marshall Perrin)]

Med Bennett <mbennett@indra.com> wrote:
> I use data from Excel all the time, but I always export them to a .CSV (commas
> separate values) format first.  Then they can be read into IDL easily.
> Alternatively, you could study one of the files with a hex editor to figure out
> where the data that you want actually starts and how the files are structured, and
> then use binary reads.  Good luck -

Don't even think about trying to do it in binary - .xls files, like .doc and
the rest of the MS Office file formats, are in an extremely complicated format
called DocFile, which basically is an entire file-system-in-a-file, complete
with FAT tables, directory structures, and balanced red-black trees wrapped
around all the actual spreadsheet data. You *don't* want to have to write a
parser for that mess in IDL. Stick with the CSV export - fast and easy.

 - Marshall