Multiple excel files processing on unix


 
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# 1  
Old 02-26-2009
Multiple excel files processing on unix

Hi all,

I am faced with a rather unusual problem regarding interaction between NT and UNIX. I am using an ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tool on unix that has the capability to read .xls files. So, when I FTP an excel (.xls) file from a windows server to unix and attempt to read it with this tool, it works. But, my project requirements state that there might be multiple files to be processed together. I tried to cat multiple xls files into a single xls file on unix and tried to read it using the tool, but it does not work; probably because unix does not recognize this format. So, my problem is, I am not able to merge multiple excel files into a single readable file on unix.

I have a feeling this cannot be done. But I wanted the experienced folks on this forum to confirm the same. I would greatly appreciate any assistance I can receive on this. If any part of my question is not clear, please let me know and I ll explain.

Thanks!
# 2  
Old 02-26-2009
If the tool you have is the only way you can process Excel files from your working environment, then it seems like it's not possible to concat them, since they're in binary format, and concatenating them will make the file either unusable to the ETL tool, or it will only read the first file and stop at the first end-of-file indicator.

However, is there any chance that you can get at the output of your ETL app, and concatenate the output of the three files before they're moved on to the next step?

If you can somehow get the XLS files converted to CSV and combine them before processing then you might be able to pull it off -- I'm sure your ETL tool can process a CSV file as an Excel spreadsheet if it can read the XLS format. There are Unix tools that can read XLS and export them as comma-delimited or tab-delimited files, such as the abtab (abstract table) utilities. I used them for two years at my old job.

abtab - Google Code (I don't know how up-to-date the Google Code files are compared to the in-house version I was using, but it should work.)
# 3  
Old 02-26-2009
ShawnMilo - Many thanks..!

The tool requires a filename to be specified. So, I was attempting to merge all files into one and process it. Processing them separately may not be possible because the number of input files will vary each time.

That being said, the only way that remains is to somehow convert it into a csv. As you rightly said, this will definitely work with my tool. Do you know of a unix tool that can convert an xls file on unix to csv? Or should I convert it at the source NT server? Can you please guide me on this.

Thank you.
# 4  
Old 02-26-2009
Yes -- the abtab utilities I linked to above. The abtab_cat utility should allow you to pass parameters identifying the input as XLS and the output as CSV (or at least tab-delimited, which is easy enough to convert).

The syntax will be something like the following (untested):

Code:
abtab_cat --in xls://filename.xls --out tab://filename.tab

 
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