[ic] More problems with Spreadsheet Export

Fri Dec 21 11:39:00 2001

On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 09:52:17AM -0600, Jason Kohles wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 11:09:54AM -0000, Jonathan Clark wrote:
> > Mike Heins wrote:
> > >
> > > This is true of Excel '95, but not of '97 and above. I have actually
> > > tested spreadsheet import and export of text fields greater than
> > > 256 characters on Excel 2000 and '97.
> > >
> > 
> > Is this a case of the dbm type database field limitation of 256 chars then?
> > 
> The only dbm implementation I am aware of that has a limit is SDBM on Solaris,
> and while the limit is small enough to be annoying, it's larger than 256
> (although I don't remember off-hand what the limit is)...

I missed the start of this.

The DBI modules (parse and write spreadsheet AFAICR) have a 256
char limit in them for excel.  DBD::Excel calls them, so it has
the same limit.  You need to hack the pm to raise the limit, at
least on write.  That's next to impossible to maintain if you
are using a package manager (eg rpm or deb).

The amount of data one can enter and save into an excel field in 
one recent version appears to be about 15362 chars.  Might be 
version specific.

At any rate, counting on more than 256 when the perl modules don't
provide more is asking for trouble.  The data is silently truncated.

--

Note I'm not talking about 'dbm' at all.

cfm

-- 

Christopher F. Miller, Publisher                               cfm@maine.com
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