Writing to ms excel

[Ken Starks]

Marin Brkic wrote:

<snip ... lots>

> Actually, that might work. What I was needing (aiming for) was a way
> to write to excel 2003 files. Formatting is not necessary, since what
> I'm trying to write is some tabular data; results from fortran-python
> simulation (I can explain, but the details seem irrelevant for this
> case).
> I'm trying to avoid the text file - import to excel - mechanism, since
> there is quite a lot of files written.

> 
> Best regards
> Marin

Again, not python ( hope I don't start a flame war,
I've just joined the list John Machin suggested--it
looks very interesting).

I have used Apache Cocoon for this kind of task. Everything
important happens server-side.
Your raw data could be stored in a database, or a flat file, or
not stored persistently at all--just be created as a virtual stream
if you can use your python/fortran utility as a web service.

It goes into the cocoon pileline, and is first turned into
XML.
Then it is turned into other XML (in this case most likely the
gnumeric format).
Lastly it is serialized into Excel format, given the appropriate
Mime type, and sent to your browser.

It is only when it gets to the Browser, that a decision is made
as to what to do with it. You can set up your Browser
to open it is MS Excel (whichever one you have), Open Office,
Gnumeric, or whatever. Most of them will cope with it perfectly,
and will be able to save it locally in their most up-to-the-minute
variation, if that is what you want.

Cheers,

Ken.