Re: octave workshop

[Carnë Draug]

2011/10/4 Roy Menachem <address@hidden>:
> Hi,
> I m working on windows 7 with octave 3.2.4 and i need to read xlsx file with 
> multiple worksheets (not csv file), I have installed 2 packages:
>  pkg install io-1.0.15.tar.gz
> and
> pkg install windows-1.1.0.tar.gz
>
> After installing the io package I got the message:
> dependencies where unsatisfied: io needs octave >=3.4.0
>
> What else should I do to be able to work on xlsx files with the xls functions?
>
> Thanks
> Roy

You can

1 - download an older version of io package that doesn't require
octave 3.4 (see all packages releases here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/files/Octave%20Forge%20Packages/Individual%20Package%20Releases/
)
2 - update your octave installation (current stable release is 3.4.2).
Since you are using windows, you can get the source from
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/download.html and compile it or you
can use cygwin
3 - instal the current package with the -nodeps flag. You'll then
loose the old and buggy textread and csv/dlm-read/write functions

Here's the changes for the latest version of io (to consider updating
one or the other):

> io-1.0.15 is primarily a bug fix release and a snapshot / wrap-up of
> current development status (some still a bit experimental).
> It mainly comprises:
>
> - A number of bug fixes (incl. a few serious ones, notably with .ods/OOo
> Calc);
>
> - Some mainly cosmetic improvements to existing code; less verbosity;
>
> - pch2mat (reading & transforming Nastran PCH files, contributed by B.
> Oytun Peksel);
>
> - object2json.m (creating a json description string of objects,
> contributed by Daniel Torre). This was already silently introduced in
> io-1.0.14;
>
> - A scripted troubleshooting / classpath setup tool for spreadsheet I/O
> support (chk_spreadsheet_support.m);
>
> - Experimental OXS support (OpenXLS) for reading Excel xls (BIFF8).
> OpenXLS is -let's say- a little bit lacking: For reading it is faster
> than JXL. However, while OXS write support has been coded (and works) I
> had to disable it as the OXS Java classes won't release the file handle
> so Octave will hang upon closing :-(
> I'm stuck with this so I just release it as-is;
>
> - Experimental UNO support, i.e. invoking OpenOffice.org (or clones like
> LibreOffice) behind the scenes to read spreadsheet files, much like
> ActiveX/COM for MS-Excel. This is also based on Java.
>
> The first time you use UNO, OOo has to be loaded and you'll have to be
> patient, but once loaded (and in the OS cache) you'll see the pros:
>   --* Blazingly fast;
>   --* Much lower Java memory usage as OOo loads the spreadsheet in its
> own memory chunk (not Octave's) => much bigger spreadsheet capacity;
>   --* You can read *all* formats supported by OOo: .ods, .xls, .csv,
> .xlsx, .sxc, .dbf, Lotus wk1, Quattro Pro, ......; and it doesn't really
> matter whether xlsopen of odsopen is used...
>
> Of course all this wonderful stuff comes at a prize:
>   --* After closing the spreadsheet file (odsclose, xlsclose) ALL OOo
> invocations will be closed, also those started outside Octave. This is
> due to "the way OpenOffice works" (quoted from OOo dev forum),
> especially through Java. There are other ways to close OOo but they'll
> hang Octave;
>   --* The Java UNO classes supplied with e.g. LibreOffice aren't kept
> quite up-to-date with the main program. As a consequence, with e.g.,
> LibreOffice 3.4 the main LO window will pop up (it can't be hidden). I
> filed a bug report for this
> (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40991) but I haven't seen
> it being picked up yet. Another example: while LO 3.3.1's row capacity
> was already > 10^6, it took until LO 3.4 before this capacity was
> implemented in the Java UNO classes.
> Like with OXS, I'm a bit stuck here - all this has to be fixed upstream.