On 27.04.2022 05:38, EML wrote:
Question: how realistic is it to hack Calc to extract a stand-alone Excel-to-csv converter? I can do the development as long as I can get usable results in a few days, and I don't have to write anything that's not C++. However, this is a non-starter if there are any Java dependencies (the code has to run on a webapp which is a minimal Ubuntu server install); I need something which can either link into a C++ app, or be run directly with minimal dependencies.
This is a often-asked question, and my honest answer is that it is unrealistic. The Excel and CSV filters are structurally very close to the Calc core, and the whole thing has lots of dependencies from other parts of the codebase. It would not be something you could just extract in a functional state in a few days.
One of my libraries, orcus[1], could be in theory used for that purpose. But it is far from complete, it can only handle very basic xlsx file type (not xls the binary variant), and it is a personal project, not a full-time one. But since you said your typical xlsx input files contain very basic contents, orcus may be sufficient.
HTH, Kohei [1] https://gitlab.com/orcus/orcus
