Standalone Excel to csv conversion?

[Kohei Yoshida]

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