topic reading excel files in Collaboration with other software

reading excel files

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 03:52:29 GMT

Has anyone had experience with reading external databases or other file types. I know how to read text files that can be created from excel documents or any database file for that matter but i really want to read it directly.

Ultimately i would like to read an excel document directly from archicad using an object without having to create a text file first?

Re: reading excel files

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:36:14 GMT

Mark wrote:
Ultimately i would like to read an excel document directly from archicad using an object without having to create a text file first?

You can do that in PM. Haven't tried (or wanted to) the same thing in AC. In PM just copy area in Excel, and paste in PM. Make sure you select the OEM option for live connections.

Re: reading excel files

TomWaltz — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:39:51 GMT

Mark wrote:
Has anyone had experience with reading external databases or other file types. I know how to read text files that can be created from excel documents or any database file for that matter but i really want to read it directly.

Ultimately i would like to read an excel document directly from archicad using an object without having to create a text file first?

Do you mean having an object that can read an Excel file then show some data that was extracted from the Excel file?

That would be really cool, but I do not know of any way to pull it off.

I tried something like that with OpenOffice a while back since its file format is just compressed XML, but got annoyed and gave up.

Re: reading excel files

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:06:43 GMT

TomWaltz wrote:
...Do you mean having an object that can read an Excel file then show some data that was extracted from the Excel file?

That would be really cool, but I do not know of any way to pull it off.

I tried something like that with OpenOffice a while back since its file format is just compressed XML, but got annoyed and gave up.

Yeah, i want the object to read data and then use this inside the object for GDL commands. Just like you can do using a txt file.

Seems like an add-on could do this but i dont have that much programming skills in C++

Re: reading excel files

TomWaltz — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:19:16 GMT

I imagine reading an Excel file would require more than just C++ skill unless you already have a good compiled library for reading M$ file formats.

Re: reading excel files

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:17:38 GMT

TomWaltz wrote:
I imagine reading an Excel file would require more than just C++ skill unless you already have a good compiled library for reading M$ file formats.

My thoughts, too. AFAIK, what you would need - since you're talking reading inside an object's script - is the GDL Dev Kit, which is available only upon special request (free, but not on a public download site) - which does indeed require C++ programming skills. This is how, for example, the XML in/out abilities of GDL were created AFAIK.

As Tom says, if you have a definition of the XLS file format or a lib that accesses it, that would be the next step. Of course, OLE automation is how typical MS apps would read the sheet, but in essence starting Excel as an automation server. That is a 100% MS solution of course.

Another option might be ODBC, which can access information inside an Excel sheet (the ODBC driver having been provided by MS, at least with the PC version of Office. While Mac OS X supports ODBC, I don't know if there is an Excel driver there.)

Karl

Re: reading excel files

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:23:48 GMT

Karl wrote:
...Another option might be ODBC, which can access information inside an Excel sheet (the ODBC driver having been provided by MS, at least with the PC version of Office. While Mac OS X supports ODBC, I don't know if there is an Excel driver there.)

Karl

Hmmm, sounds like it is moving towards a too hard basket for me unless i get a third party to write it for me. Thanks for the info guys.