[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #53459] [octave forge] (io) 2.4.10 function xlsread, results in unexpected error reading Excel (xlsx) file

[Philip Nienhuis]

Follow-up Comment #9, bug #53459 (project octave):

As I feared this is getting extremely complicated.

I got reading the files a la the example 500V_SHORT.xlsx running fine, plus
fixed xlsfinfo.m for such files. That part wasn't too hard, yet much more
involved than the patch by Markus.

But writing to this complicate type of file is a real PITA;
* Just adding a value randomly in an empty cell risks screwing up
calcChain.xml as apparently that supposedly empty cell may be part of some
calc range. Excel complains, LibreOffice doesn't but that may be an LO bug.
* Adding new worksheets within a mixed stack of chartsheets, macrosheets and
plain worksheets requires extensive surgery in the internal XML file
bookkeeping, a part that is already extremely complicated.

I'm thinking of just committing the changes for reading (xlsread) and
exploring (xlsfinfo) and leave it at that for the time being. 
Anyway I'd also like to make a new io package release soon, maybe w/o a
solution for the writing issues mentioned here.


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