Release announcement: FreeXL 2.0

[Alessandro Furieri]

Hi List,

after ten years of placid and uneventful bug fixing maintenance a new 

major version of FreeXL is now ready to be delivered.

FreeXL-2.0

====================

- MS Excel binary formats (.xls suffix) still continue to be supported

  exactly as in previous versions.

- but now also the most modern Spreadsheets based on XML formats can

  be directly accessed:

  * MS Excel (*.xlsx suffix) are supported.

  * Libre/OpenOffice Calc (*.ods suffix) are supported as well.

the source tarballs of the first Release Candidate are available

from here:

http://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/freexl-sources/freexl-2.0.0-RC0.tar.gz

http://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/freexl-sources/freexl-2.0.0-RC0.zip

libspatialite has already been adapted so to fully support the

extended capabilities of FreeXL-2.0:

- the VirtualXL driver is now able to indifferently access *.xls,

  *.xlsx or *.ods Spreadsheets.

- the same is for the SQL function ImportXLS()

all related changes are already committed into the Fossil repository.

Tech Note for builders and packagers:

=====================================

FreeXL-2.0 has two further dependencies:

- libexpat is required for XML parsing

- minizip is required for directly reading from the

  compressed .xlsx and .ods formats.

  

both libraries are supported by all major Linux distros;

in any case you can eventually disable any support for .xlsx 

and .ods documents by passing to the .configure script the

--disable-xmldocs option.

Tech Note for building on Windows:

==================================

1. using MinGW and MSYS2: please chek

   http://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/mingw32_how_to.html

   and

   http://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/mingw64_how_to.html

   

2. using MSVC: you'll find into the source tarballs two

   build scripts intended for NMAKE:

   makefile.vc (32 bit)

   makefile64.vc (64 bit)

   

   Note: both libiconv and libexpat are supported by  

   OSGeo4W, but minizip is not currently supported.

   BUilding minizip on MSVC is basically simple:

   a) download the most recent sources from here:

      https://github.com/zlib-ng/minizip-ng/releases

   b) then use CMAKE for building and installing.

   

Happy testing,

Sandro

      

   

[Bas Couwenberg]

On Monday, June 14, 2021 at 10:24:40 AM UTC+2 Alessandro Furieri wrote:

FreeXL-2.0

====================

- MS Excel binary formats (.xls suffix) still continue to be supported

  exactly as in previous versions.

- but now also the most modern Spreadsheets based on XML formats can

  be directly accessed:

  * MS Excel (*.xlsx suffix) are supported.

  * Libre/OpenOffice Calc (*.ods suffix) are supported as well.

Why was the SONAME bumped (from libfreexl.so.1 to libfreexl.so.3) if the MS Excel format support was not changed?

Kind Regards,

Bas

[a.fu...@lqt.it]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2021 04:58:18 -0700 (PDT), Bas Couwenberg wrote:
> Why was the SONAME bumped (from libfreexl.so.1 to libfreexl.so.3) if
> the MS Excel format support was not changed?
>

Hi Bas,

once again struggling with the infamous SONAME :-P

1. it was previously defined as
-version-info 2:0:1

2. the new version preserves all the existing API
exactly as they were, and introduces few new
API required by the .xlsx and .ods formats

3. consequently I supposed that the new version
should declare -version-info 3:0:0, but I was
obviously wrong

which is the expected SONAME in this case ?

thanks in advance,
Sandro

[Even Rouault]

Sandro,

The recipee for updating libtool version-info is at https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/html_node/Updating-version-info.html .

"3. If the library source code has changed at all since the last update, then increment revision", so 2:0:1 ==> 2:1:1

"4. If any interfaces have been added, removed, or changed since the last update, increment current, and set revision to 0.", so 2:1:1 ==> 3:0:1

"5. If any interfaces have been added since the last public release, then increment age. " , so 3:0:1 ==> 3:0:2

"6. If any interfaces have been removed or changed since the last public release, then set age to 0": doesn't apply, so finally is 3:0:2

Even

-- 
http://www.spatialys.com
My software is free, but my time generally not.

[a.fu...@lqt.it]

On Wed, 16 Jun 2021 15:27:55 +0200, Even Rouault wrote:
> Sandro,
>
> The recipee for updating libtool version-info is at
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/html_node/Updating-version-info.html

> [1] .
>
> ------------------------- <snip> ----------------------

>
> "3. If the library source code has changed at all since the last
> update, then increment revision", so 2:0:1 ==> 2:1:1
> "4. If any interfaces have been added, removed, or changed since the
> last update, increment current, and set revision to 0.", so 2:1:1 ==>
> 3:0:1

> "6. If any interfaces have been removed or changed since the last
> public release, then set age to 0": doesn't apply, so finally is
> 3:0:2
>

Even, thanks a lot

I knew I missed some stupid detail :-P

bye,
Sandro

[Bas Couwenberg]

RC1 has been out for a while now. When can we expect the final release?

Kind Regards,

Bas

[Jeff McKenna]

Please also change all download links to HTTPS on
https://www.gaia-gis.it/fossil/freexl/index

Thanks,

-jeff



--
Jeff McKenna
GatewayGeo: Developers of MS4W, MapServer Consulting and Training
co-founder of FOSS4G
http://gatewaygeo.com/

[Bas Couwenberg]

On Sunday, October 24, 2021 at 1:14:32 PM UTC+2 jeffm...@gmail.com wrote:

Please also change all download links to HTTPS on
https://www.gaia-gis.it/fossil/freexl/index

Alternatively, use: https://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/freexl-sources/

[Jeff McKenna]

Of course but new users are unaware, as the main page that I referenced
has only http links.

-jeff

[Bas Couwenberg]

Happy one year anniversary to FreeXL 2.0-rc1, would be awesome to celebrate with a final release.

[Stefano Verugi]

Hi Sandro and  Happy New Year to everybody here

any plan on releasing windows binaries of FreeXL 2.0 for us mortals? :-)

or some instructions for dummies?

I have no idea how to implement it in sqlite3/spatialite nor how to compile it, sorry

any help would be greatly appreciated

ciao

[Stefano Verugi]

PS at the moment I am using SELECT ImportXLS(filename, tablename); but every time I have to save the spreadsheet as xls instead of xlsx..