[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #50412] [OF] request for .xlsm & .xlsb support in io package

[Philip Nienhuis]

Update of bug #50412 (project octave):

                Severity:              3 - Normal => 2 - Minor              
                Priority:              5 - Normal => 3 - Low                
                  Status:                    None => Postponed              
                 Release:                   4.2.1 => other                  
                 Summary: fixes loading of .xlsm files in pkg io-2.4.5 => [OF]
request for .xlsm & .xlsb support in io package

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Follow-up Comment #1:

Issue 1 has already been fixed a while ago:
https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/io/ci/eb8f203a58186a3637b5b9b02d21113fb214262e/
(the proper fix was a bit more involved than simply setting r_extnd to 0)

FYI: the io package has received several bug fixes since 2.4.5, see 
https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/io/ci/1a1577acf2196217184a1e3bdacb64574b07baf3/log/?path=
Once I have time (hopefully somewhere soon) I'll make a new release (2.4.6 or
a 2.6.0, depending on more code changes I only have in my local repos).


Issue 2:
I've looked into this several years ago. Result: .xlsm is intentionally not
supported.
Reading from .xlsm may be OK, but writing to .xlsm is a different thing.
There's simply too much internal bookkeeping involved.  The more so for
.xlsb.
FYI to safely support those file types quite a few more changes are required
in various places scattered over the code than you noted.

If you can provide a number of reasonably complicated .xlsm and .xlsb files
for testing I'm definitely willing to try to implement it (at least reading)
but I have (1) little time and (2) other priorities ATM so it may take quite a
while.

Note that the COM interface (=Excel itself behind the scenes) can obviously
process these file types OOTB.  But chances are that once the spreadsheet I/O
moves to core Octave (the intention is still there I believe) the COM
interface will be dropped.
I'm unsure about .xlsb and .xlsm support with the only other interfaces that
support OOXML (POI = Apache POI, UNO = LibreOffice).  As far as OCT goes I
already found that .xlsm support adds more complexity for safely writing to
file.
OXS (OpenXLS) does feature OOXML I/O but I found it too buggy and although the
code is there I've disabled it.


Title adapted
Setting Priority => low
Release => other (not core Octave)
Severity => Minor
Status => Postponed


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