Mailing-List: contact cocoon-dev-help@xml.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 14:31:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Donald Ball <balld@webslingerZ.com>
To: cocoon-dev@xml.apache.org
Subject: Re: Excel in, XML out
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On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Glenn Taylor wrote:

> Lotsa questions about Excel today. Here's mine. Can I use an MSExcel
> spreadsheet as an input source and transform it into XML? How would one do
> so?
> 
> Here's why: users could plug data into a spreadsheet (which is more
> people-friendly) which could then be output to an XML config file, to drive
> dynamic website generation.
> 
> In other words, if you need to change the set-up of a website, you change a
> column in the spreadsheet. Cocoon transforms this into an XML config file,
> which then drives cascading change throughout the system.

there is a program for UNIX called xls2xml:

http://arturo.directmail.org/filtersweb/#xls2xml

it appears to have been abandoned by its author, but i've used it on odd
occasions and it's not too bad. i don't like the way it presents the data,
it makes it very difficult to iterate over all of the rows and columns in
the active workspace using vanilla XSLT (the gnumeric spreadsheet file
format is much easier to work with!). but it is xml.

i patched xsl2xml to produce output that was slightly easier for me to
work with, let me know if you're interested; i never did get around to
using this in a real production project. perhaps if the package were being
actively maintained i might be more interested.

- donald