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xlsReadWrite package repository for Ubuntu

14 messages · Uwe Ligges, Brian Ripley, Ben Bolker +7 more

reverend33
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Hi,

I'm trying to install R on Ubuntu.
I succeeded at installing the r-recommended package that is present in the
synaptics, but i can't find the xlsReadWrite package in the repositories
included in my synaptics manager.
Does anybody know a liable repository in which this package is present.

Thanks in advance
Uwe Ligges
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reverend33 wrote:
If you consider the CRAN master to be liable, it tells you for xlsReadWrite:

OS_type: 	windows

Moreover it tells you that the package's status for R-devel is "ERROR".


Uwe Ligges
Brian Ripley
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On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, reverend33 wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
The CRAN Windows ones.  It is a windows-only package, see

http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/xlsReadWrite/index.html

(incidentally to you: it seems no longer maintained and does not build 
under R-devel on Windows, see 
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.9/check/xlsReadWrite-check.log
The maintainer has not responded to requests for a fix.)

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    
1 day later

    

      
      

        


  

        

      reverend33
    

    

      
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I'm sorry, maybe i didn't explain clearly: i'm trying to install xlsReadWrite
on a Linux-type OS (Ubuntu)...

        
Uwe Ligges-3 wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Ben Bolker
    

    

      
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reverend33 wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
I think you didn't understand the answers: the package is only available
under Windows.

  cheers
   Ben Bolker

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Gabor Grothendieck
    

    

      
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If your purpose is to read Excel spreadsheets on Linux read.xls in the gdata
packages can do that.  It uses perl software underneath which is portable
across systems.

        
On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 7:38 AM, reverend33 <periac_raki at hotmail.com> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Marc Schwartz
    

    

      
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You perhaps missed the key point in Uwe's response, which is that the
package is only available under Windows, as it depends upon Windows
specific functionality (MS Office API via a third party library which is
available for Windows only) to natively read and write Excel files.
Thus, there is no package version available for Linux, or OSX for that
matter.

If you need to read Excel files under Linux, you could look at the
read.xls() function in the 'gdata' CRAN package. This package requires
that Perl be installed, as it calls a Perl routine (xls2csv) for
converting the Excel file to a CSV file, which can then be read into R.

If you need to write Excel files under Linux, you can use a Perl routine
that I had posted back in 2007:

  https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2007-July/135968.html

and have updated since then to handle Unicode issues. I am attaching a
2k text file here with the updated routine.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

        
on 03/03/2009 06:38 AM reverend33 wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: WriteXLS.txt
URL: <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20090303/6b545be9/attachment-0003.txt>

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Leandro Marino
    

    

      
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I think in this case its better use the write.csv. Microsoft Excel reads csv files normally. 

Atenciosamente,
Leandro Lins Marino
Centro de Avalia??o
Funda??o CESGRANRIO
Rua Santa Alexandrina, 1011 - 2? andar
Rio de Janeiro, RJ - CEP: 20261-903
R (21) 2103-9600 R.:236 
( (21) 8777-7907
( leandro at cesgranrio.org.br

"Aquele que suporta o peso da sociedade
    ? precisamente aquele que obt?m
 as menores vantagens". (SMITH, Adam)

?  Antes de imprimir pense em sua responsabilidade e compromisso com o MEIO AMBIENTE 

-----Mensagem original-----
De: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] Em nome de Marc Schwartz
Enviada em: ter?a-feira, 3 de mar?o de 2009 10:38
Para: reverend33
Cc: r-help at r-project.org
Assunto: Re: [R] xlsReadWrite package repository for Ubuntu

You perhaps missed the key point in Uwe's response, which is that the package is only available under Windows, as it depends upon Windows specific functionality (MS Office API via a third party library which is available for Windows only) to natively read and write Excel files.
Thus, there is no package version available for Linux, or OSX for that matter.

If you need to read Excel files under Linux, you could look at the
read.xls() function in the 'gdata' CRAN package. This package requires that Perl be installed, as it calls a Perl routine (xls2csv) for converting the Excel file to a CSV file, which can then be read into R.

If you need to write Excel files under Linux, you can use a Perl routine that I had posted back in 2007:

  https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2007-July/135968.html

and have updated since then to handle Unicode issues. I am attaching a 2k text file here with the updated routine.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

        
on 03/03/2009 06:38 AM reverend33 wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Marc Schwartz
    

    

      
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That is fine if you only have one or two R objects to write out to CSV
files and then read them into Excel. It becomes rapidly tedious as the
number of objects increases.

If you go back and read my original post, the incentive for me to write
the Perl routine was that I had to create an Excel file for clients that
contained a "large" number of tabs, each tab containing data from an R
data frame. My clients are on Windows, I have been on Linux.

In many cases, the number of data frames was >20. Thus, creating that
number of CSV files, importing each one into a separate tab into a
single Excel and naming each tab appropriately (in my case, using
OO.org's Calc) became very tedious.

The Perl routing automates that process, saving a great deal of time and
reducing the potential for error.

Regards,

Marc

        
on 03/03/2009 07:53 AM Leandro Marino wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Gabor Grothendieck
    

    

      
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There is a recently updated review of the alternatives on the R Wiki:

http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=tips:data-io:ms_windows

        
On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at comcast.net> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Dirk Eddelbuettel
    

    

      
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On 3 March 2009 at 07:38, Marc Schwartz wrote:

        
| You perhaps missed the key point in Uwe's response, which is that the
| package is only available under Windows, as it depends upon Windows
| specific functionality (MS Office API via a third party library which is
| available for Windows only) to natively read and write Excel files.
| Thus, there is no package version available for Linux, or OSX for that
| matter.
| 
| If you need to read Excel files under Linux, you could look at the
| read.xls() function in the 'gdata' CRAN package. This package requires
| that Perl be installed, as it calls a Perl routine (xls2csv) for
| converting the Excel file to a CSV file, which can then be read into R.

Also,   'sudo apt-get install r-cran-gdata'   installs that package on Ubuntu.
The package contains the Perl code.  Years ago, I also added the appropriate
Perl modules to read and write xls files to Debian, these are still available
in Ubuntu so one could write a matching write.xls and contribute it back to
the gdata package.

Finally, note that there is an entire R manual devoted to Data Import questions.

Dirk

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      reverend33
    

    

      
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Thanks a lot for all your answers.
Indeed, i hadn't understood the previous answers.
I just downloaded the gdata package and it works perfectly now.
Thanks again.

        
Gabor Grothendieck wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Hans-Peter Suter
    

    

      
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2009/3/2 Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk>:

            

      
      
      
    

        
I didn't get a request (my email was '<gchappi at gmail> instead of
<gchappi at gmail.com>). I'll look into the issue this weekend.

However there might be a problem because the package contains binary
code and maybe xlsReadWrite has to be put on a place other than CRAN
(I'll ask Rcore about this in a separate email). In any case I
absolutely intend to maintain the package also in future. AFAIK it
works well (apart from a small rowname bug which surfaced recently ;-)
and provides a pragmatic alternative to the OSS R packages gdata and
RODBC)

2009/3/3 Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at comcast.net>:

            

      
      
      
    

        
It's correct that xlsReadWrite is currently only available for
Windows. However it doesn't use the MS Office API but  works directly
with the file format (BIFF8), i.e. Excel is _not_ required. True is,
that it uses a third party library (Flexcel, TMSSoftware). This
library supports FreePascal which means that theoretically
xlsReadWrite could be compiled for Linux/Mac (tried once, didn't
succeed, will try again later (now also using Macs and
Debian/Ubuntu)).

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Rolf Turner
    

    

      
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On 4/03/2009, at 2:38 AM, Marc Schwartz wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        
For those needing to write *.xls files as well as read them, the  
write.xls
function in the package dataframes2xls might be useful.  I have no  
actual
experience in using it, but.

	cheers,

		Rolf Turner

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