xls.getshlib {xlsReadWrite}R Documentation

Download regular shlib (dll/so)

Description

Downloads regular shlib from our swissr dropbox account and replaces cran placeholder version with it. For background info see details.

Usage

xls.getshlib( pkgvers = NA, url = NA, md5 = TRUE, reload.shlib = TRUE, 
                                                        lib.loc = .libPaths(), tmpdir = tempdir() )

Arguments

pkgvers optional character string to override the default (which is: (packageDescription( "xlsReadWrite" )$Version)). pkgvers is used to replace placeholder in dropbox download url.
url optional character string to indicate a custom url to the zipped file containing the shlib. Local, i.e. file://<my url> urls are possible. If an url string has been given, the 'pkgvers' argument will not be used.
md5 with TRUE an md5 value will be retrieved from a file (with '.md5.txt' suffix) located at the url indicated. A character string is assumed to be the md5 value to be used for checking. FALSE disables the check.
reload.shlib TRUE to replace the loaded (placeholder) library. With FALSE the shlib will only be downloaded (path will be displayed).
lib.loc library tree which contains the xlsReadWrite package.
tmpdir temporary folder to downloaded file.

Details

xls.getshlib() will download, check and install the regular shlib just fine. You shouldn't need to provide additional arguments.

The shlib file is hosted on our swissr dropbox account with the following url: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2602516/swissrpkg/bin/<os>/shlib/xlsReadWrite_<pkgvers>_dll.zip

There have been thorough tests initially but we do not give ANY GUARANTEES AT ALL. You might want to revise the 'xls.getshlib' code and/or checkout the package help. In the README file you'll find instructions how to compile the package for yourself.

Why is such an 'install-procedure' necessary? Two reasons:

  1. Our own xlsReadWrite code is free, but we also use a proprietary code library (Flexcel, tmssoftware.com) which can only be distributed legally in precompiled, i.e. binary form. However cran 'generally does not accept submissions of precompiled binaries due to security reasons' (see R-exts and R-FAQ).
  2. xlsReadWrite is written in Pascal and cran most probably wouldn't be able/interested to support suitable compilers, i.e. Delphi and/or FPC. (We didn't ask about compilers though, because the first point already rules out a normal open source distribution of the package.

Pro version

See section under read.xls.

See Also

read.xls, write.xls

Examples

## Not run: 
xls.getshlib()
## End(Not run)

[Package xlsReadWrite version 1.5.1 Index]