Re: io-2.4.13 released

[Philip Nienhuis]

Kai Torben Ohlhus wrote:
> On 10/18/19 5:30 PM, PhilipNienhuis wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > I wouldn't be surprised if the spreadsheet I/O in the io package is among
> > the most used of all OF package functions. FWIW, the vast majority of io
> > package bug reports was about .xls and .xlsx; bug reports for .ods have been
> > very scarce. Adding in JWE's observation (expressed at an OctConf 2018
> > lecture) that the user base mostly cares about Matlab compatibility I think
> > we'd just have to yield to spreadsheet I/O function names starting with
> > "xls", at least for the time being. Whether in an OF package or in core
> > wouldn't matter.
>
> Thank you for the new release Philip.  Sure, Octave without the io
> toolbox would be by far less attractive for many former Matlab and
> current MS Windows users, that no longer have a Matlab license, but tons
> of "old" Matlab code reading spreadsheet data by "xlsread".
> Unfortunately, for many of those users the words "data" and "MS Excel
> spreadsheets" are still synonyms.  But hopefully things might change in
> the future and we can go Olafs and my desire.

... and mine desire as well.
I sometimes frown upon the way Octave tends to mimick Matlab beyond just 
code compatibility. But I guess in the end the user base dictates so.

> > [...]
> >
> > For readTable() and friends Octave needs to have the Table class
> > implemented. To my knowlegde there are no definite plans for that; there is
> > a prospect of a start by Markus Bergholz somewhere in (IIRC) the bug
> > tracker, from several years back.
>
> Regarding this, I want to remind of Andrews project [1].

Thanks, I forgot about that. Yeah, an impressive piece of work. But, 
still no Table I/O there AFAICS.
On github (or gitlab?) I saw a readTable() that effectively is a wrapper 
for xlsread. Could be a temporary solution.

Note that on Matlab, "If your system does not have Excel ..., the 
[readTable] importing function .... reads only .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm, 
.xltx, and .xltm files" and "... with Excel® software, the [readTable] 
importing function reads any Excel spreadsheet file format recognized by 
your version of Excel" 
(https://nl.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/readtable.html).
I'm sure Octave (= we) can do better :-)

Philip