In front of me i have an absolutely immense excel worksheet which a client has handed me. The user would usually input the data into the first sheet of this workbook, and then read the results from various sheets from the workbook (its one big formulaic mess).
The client's employee who developed the workbook has left, and the formulas are just everywhere, and complicated.
Time constraints removes the possibility of translating the formulas into a manageable script with manageable mysql tables.
The client said 'could you write into the first sheet, then just read the result?'.
Clients are always helpful like this, we know - but i explained that its not as easy as that because an excel workbook has no processing power of its own - excel has the processing power to turn a formula into a result (youd be surprised how long this conversation was)
So I tried the whole excel reader thing using various php classes, and unforunately, the result i have is that the workbook is just so damned huge that it either bombs out for lack of memory, or you just dont get a result from the formulas.
I need, an option three.
I have this idea in my head that if i install openoffice onto the linux box where the site resides, then some bright spark at oo would have been clever enough to decide that at some point, someone will want an set of commandline tools for writng to and reading from an excel sheet, making my job a whooooole load easier.
I suspect im kidding myself, and that this whole idea should just disappear until the client can :-
a) tell me how the workbook works
b) give me more time to figure out how the workbook works.
Still, I thought id put it out there as altho iv not been here in a while, i certainly do remember that there are a few genius programmers on here who always enjoy a challenge, if only to prove their leet haxoring skillz....
Thanks if anyone has any ideas.
If im not making myself clear - ask away and ill try to explain better.
