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Posted to dev@cocoon.apache.org by Michael Wechner <mi...@wyona.org> on 2002/07/23 06:37:29 UTC
Excel generator
Hi
Is there an Excel Generator, which creates from an Excel (xls) file
some XML? Or what approach would you take to convert existing Excel
documents into some useful XML?
Thanks a lot
Michael
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[RT] To SAX or not to SAX (was: Re: Excel generator)
Posted by "Andrew C. Oliver" <ac...@apache.org>.
Here's the thing. Everytime I start to write one I get caught in a
delimma.
Within POI (http://jakarta.apache.org/poi) the current "eventmodel"
(http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/javadocs/org/apache/poi/hssf/eventmodel/package-summary.html
for javadoc or
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/javadocs/javasrc/org/apache/poi/hssf/eventmodel/classList.html
for source) resembles the AWT event model because I happen to like the
AWT event model. It was also *sax inspired* but is not sax resembling
because lets face it...SAX is ugly and smells of old holy socks.
Still SAX is SAX and the mapping between what the event model in poi
does esentially for an Excel file what SAX intends to do. This could
possibly have the unintended (good?) effect of generating easily the
Excel 2000+ XML format because as far as I can tell, the Excel 2000+ XML
format is largely just the binary format translated to XML (if we get
the capitalization and attribute names right). (I researched that for
all of 10 minutes before deciding I hated it as an XML format, so don't
take this as gospel). If I *did* do that then I'd probably want to
rewrite the serializer to match.
And if I did that I'd break our compatibility with Gnumeric (and really
my method of generating simple report stylesheets), but I'm not sure
thats an issue for many people. If I can talk Tony Stintes (Java World
-
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2002-05/01-qa-0503-excel3.html)
into doing an its XML-lent article or something then maybe more people
would use the Serializer and have suggestions into the generator but at
the moment, I've no one to bounce ideas off of. I've a huge
(personality trait) barrier to starting something like this if I can't
make a decision for what path to take. (too much pride in my work).
As for completely ditching the POI event model for SAX and making the
cocoon generator a light wrapper around it I've all but decided against
it for these reasons:
1. A lot of people are using POI but not any particular XML library.
The bindings between POI and SAX or JAXP might break under old versions
of Tomcat and friends. IN short, XML-jar-hell! (the prevelant
situation for XML and Java in a produciton environment)
2. The event model is more natural to the item at hand and does not
preclude wrapping it with SAX.
So the questions at hand are:
1. What do people want from the generator?
2. Is preserving compatibility with Gnumeric important?
Decisions I've made:
The generator should be comaptible with the serializer whatever is chosen.
As soon as I resolve these issues writing the generator should be easy.
In the meantime, if someone wants to start it. understand the
serializer and how it works
(org.apache.cocoon.components.elementprocessor.** --which someone is now
duplicating in the scratchpad with "Tag"). Read up on the POI event
model. Do the opposite as the element processor (take XLS and output
tags). Should be simple if you're not striving for full functionality.
Sorry long answer to a short question, but I'm on the fence.
-Andy
Michael Wechner wrote:
> Hi
>
> Is there an Excel Generator, which creates from an Excel (xls) file
> some XML? Or what approach would you take to convert existing Excel
> documents into some useful XML?
>
> Thanks a lot
>
> Michael
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: cocoon-dev-unsubscribe@xml.apache.org
> For additional commands, email: cocoon-dev-help@xml.apache.org
>
>
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Re: Excel generator
Posted by "Andrew C. Oliver" <ac...@apache.org>.
Ryan do note that the HSSFSerializer is already part of cocoon:
http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/userdocs/serializers/xls-serializer.html
-Andy
Ryan Hoegg wrote:
> Hi,
>
> You might check out the POI project (hunt around for the HSSF stuff).
> They claim to be working on Generators and Serializers for Cocoon for
> all the formats.
>
> http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/index.html
>
> Ryan
>
> Michael Wechner wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> Is there an Excel Generator, which creates from an Excel (xls) file
>> some XML? Or what approach would you take to convert existing Excel
>> documents into some useful XML?
>>
>> Thanks a lot
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
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>> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
>> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>>
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
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>>
>
>
>
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Re: Excel generator
Posted by Ryan Hoegg <rh...@isisnetworks.net>.
Hi,
You might check out the POI project (hunt around for the HSSF stuff).
They claim to be working on Generators and Serializers for Cocoon for
all the formats.
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/index.html
Ryan
Michael Wechner wrote:
> Hi
>
> Is there an Excel Generator, which creates from an Excel (xls) file
> some XML? Or what approach would you take to convert existing Excel
> documents into some useful XML?
>
> Thanks a lot
>
> Michael
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
>
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