Re: Re: Re: writing with WriteExcel in OO style

[jmcnamara]

Do I reinvent the wheel?

No. :-)

The set_column() method should allow you to set the format for a column and then have that applied to all data written to the column. However, it doesn't currently work like that and it should really be fixed.

An easy way of adding new methods to the Worksheet class, or to any of the other classes, is to do something like this:

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

    use strict;
    use Spreadsheet::WriteExcel;

    my $workbook  = Spreadsheet::WriteExcel->new("test.xls");
    my $worksheet = $workbook->addworksheet();

    $worksheet->write   ('A1', "Hello");
    $worksheet->uc_write('A2', "Hello"); # New method

    #
    # The following will be appended to
    # Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Worksheet
    #
    package Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Worksheet;


    #
    # uc_write: A worksheet method that does ...
    #
    sub uc_write {

        my $self  = shift;

        $self->write($_[0], uc $_[1]);
    }

In the example directory of the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel distro the write_many.pl and comments.pl programs use this methodology.

However, this is only suitable for simple or one-off solutions. If you need to do anything more complicated or maintainable it would probably be better to subclass the Worksheet class.

--
John.