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This queue is for tickets about the Spreadsheet-WriteExcel CPAN distribution.

Maintainer(s)' notes

If you are reporting a bug in Spreadsheet::WriteExcel here are some pointers

1) State the issues as clearly and as concisely as possible. A simple program or Excel test file (see below) will often explain the issue better than a lot of text.

2) Provide information on your system, version of perl and module versions. The following program will generate everything that is required. Put this information in your bug report.

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

    print "\n    Perl version   : $]";
    print "\n    OS name        : $^O";
    print "\n    Module versions: (not all are required)\n";

    my @modules = qw(
                      Spreadsheet::WriteExcel
                      Parse::RecDescent
                      File::Temp
                      OLE::Storage_Lite
                      IO::Stringy
                      Spreadsheet::ParseExcel
                      Scalar::Util
                      Unicode::Map
                    );

    for my $module (@modules) {
        my $version;
        eval "require $module";

        if (not $@) {
            $version = $module->VERSION;
            $version = '(unknown)' if not defined $version;
        }
        else {
            $version = '(not installed)';
        }

        printf "%21s%-24s\t%s\n", "", $module, $version;
    }

    __END__

3) Upgrade to the latest version of Spreadsheet::WriteExcel (or at least test on a system with an upgraded version). The issue you are reporting may already have been fixed.

4) Create a small but complete example program that demonstrates your problem. The program should be as small as possible. At the same time it should be a complete program that generates an Excel file. If the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel section is part of a much larger program then simplify it down to the essentials. Simulate any DB reads with an array.

5) Say if you tested with Excel, OpenOffice, Gnumeric or something else. Say which version of that application you used.

6) If you are submitting a patch you should check with the author whether the issue has already been patched or if a fix is in the works. Patches should be accompanied by test cases.

Asking a question

If you would like to ask a more general question there is the Spreadsheet::WriteExcel Google Group.

Report information
The Basics
Id: 20948
Status: resolved
Worked: 1 hour (60 min)
Priority: 0/
Queue: Spreadsheet-WriteExcel

People
Owner: jmcnamara [...] cpan.org
Requestors: kwilliams [...] cpan.org
Cc:
AdminCc:

Bug Information
Severity: (no value)
Broken in: (no value)
Fixed in: 2.18



Subject: Man page broken
Hi, There's a line in WriteExcel.pm that looks like this: $worksheet->write_comment('C4', 'Comment ca va?'); except that the 'c' is a fancy c with a little thingy hanging down from it, and this generates the error: iconv: illegal input sequence at position 69563 and cuts off the man page at that point. I'm on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, and my iconv is version 2.3.3. Perl is version 5.8.1. -Ken
I just went in and removed that line and it looks like there are several other non-ascii characters in there that choke me up the same way. For now I've removed/changed all of them, not sure what you'll want to do for future releases. -Ken
Hi Ken, What is you LANG setting? With LANG=en_US I get a man warning but the entire manpage still displays (apart from the C cedilla). If I set it to LANG=en_US.UTF-8 then I don't get any warnings and the symbols display. I am using: perl 5.8.7 iconv 2.3.6 man 2.4.3 linux 2.6.15 I could leave out the C cedilla (it is just there for a bad pun) but I'd prefer to leave in the other symbols such as pound and yen since they illustrate an important point. So I'm inclined to leave the docs as they are. Perhaps you could try a later version of iconv and see if that makes a difference. Of just set you LANG variable on a temporary basis (although beware of running perl with a UTF-8 LANG on RH. There used to be a problem with that, I don't know if there still is). John. --
From: KWILLIAMS [...] cpan.org
Hi John, My LANG is en_US.UTF-8 like yours, but my LC_ALL is set to C. If I unset the LC_ALL variable, I can display the full man page but there's some wonky formatting like this: # Write a number and a formula using A1 notation $worksheet->write(âA3â, 1.2345); $worksheet->write(âA4â, â=SIN(PI()/4)â); (what should be quotes are looking like a's with little hats. Is it trying to use curly quotes or something?) -Ken
As of version 2.18 I've removed all high bit characters from the Pod to avoid this problem.