Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel

sth has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello Monks,

I am having a problem with Spreadsheet::ParseExcel and Perl 5.8.?. I get the pack warnings of,

Character in 'C' format wrapped in pack at /5.8.4/Spreadsheet/ParseExcel/FmtDefault.pm line 68

This worked with Perl 5.6.1, but does not work with 5.8. The spread sheet being parsed has not changed. I've seen this question posted, but I have not found an answer. I realize that the problem is the ascii characters are > 128 and is causing the problem. So my questions are,

- Can I supress the warnings in the calling code?

- Did I miss a solution in my searching? (my eyes are glazing over at this point)

- Or can I convert the xls file somehow, is there a parse option I am missing?

Thanks, sth

Comment on Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jul 20, 2004 at 18:32 UTC
The only way I can provoke that warning using pack 'C', is if the input values are > 255? If that's the case, maybe the module should be using 'U'. Examine what is said, not who speaks. "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham "Think for yourself!" - Abigail "Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algoritm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel by sth (Priest) on Jul 20, 2004 at 18:40 UTC
...Yes, I should have said > 255(unsigned char). ..maybe the module should be using 'U'.* I think I did see that idea posted, somewhere in all my searching. I will try to change it and see if it works. Any idea why this is occuring with 5.8? Did Unicode not work in 5.6 ?	[reply]
Re^3: Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jul 20, 2004 at 19:38 UTC
Perl's implementation of unicode changed quite a lot between 5.6.x and 5.8.x. It is, so I read, very much improved in 5.8.x but with that improvement came the need for a few non-backwards compatible changes and some extra warnings it seems. I've yet done precious little with it. Examine what is said, not who speaks. "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham "Think for yourself!" - Abigail "Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algoritm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon	[reply]
Re^4: Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel by sth (Priest) on Jul 20, 2004 at 20:39 UTC
Re^5: Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jul 20, 2004 at 21:01 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^3: Perl 5.8.? and ParseExcel by sth (Priest) on Jul 20, 2004 at 19:37 UTC
Well the 'U' didn't work, the code is parsing the xls file and adding it to a tab in another xls. Spreadsheet::WriteExcel complains about the characters being to wide. I think there has to be something I can set that will avoid this warning. Parse is defaulting to 'C', because it is not UTF8, as far as I can tell. I saw something about setting LANG=en_us.UTF8. I'll do some more searching, since I really don't know to much about UTF8, in case you haven't noticed. :-)	[reply]

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