excelchop

name	excelchop
description	`excelchop` is a CLI utility that I have written. It's purpose is to be able to get data out of Excel files out to standard output to then be used with traditional shell utilities and pipelines.

excelchop is a CLI utility that I have written. It's purpose is to be able to get data out of Excel files out to standard output to then be used with traditional shell utilities and pipelines.

Here is the usage help:

Usage: excelchop [options...] excel_file

Options: --sigfigs Integer significant figures for numeric cells. Default is to print using current excel format. --all-sheets Extract data from all sheets in the Workbook --no-strip Don't strip whitespace from beginning and end of cell contents --csv Output in RFC 4180 CSV format (UTF-8) -A --all-fields-all-blank Stop reading when all fields in complete range are blank before stopping. -D --dateformat Output format for date cells, .NET style [yyyy-MM-dd] -S --stop-any Stop reading when any columns specified are empty. Specify columns as comma separated list. -d --delim Output field delimiter [tab] -e --escape Escape newlines with '\n' characters -h --help Show help and exit -i --in-place Write to .tsv with same name as input xlsx file rather than standard output -p --print Print information about workbook. w = worksheet names -r --range Specify range (A1:B2 or 2:A:B style) [A1:B10] -s --stop-all Stop reading when all columns specified are empty. Specify columns as comma separated list. -v --version Show version and exit -w --sheet Worksheet name [first sheet]

excelchop extracts data out of Microsoft Excel files and sends it to standard output. From here, you can pipe the data through other filters to achieve your goals.

By default, excelchop will return all the data within the first worksheet. Using the '-r' option, you can specify a subset range. You can either specify the range like

excelchop -r A1:B10 excelfile.xlsx

or you can allow excelchop to automatically find the last row. You can use the special range syntax 'startrow:startcolumn:endcolumn'.

excelchop -r 2:A:D excelfile.xlsx

This will start at row 2, extracting data from columns A to D, stopping once it reaches a row in which ANY of the values are empty or whitespace. You can use the options -A, -s, or -S, to change this stopping behavior.

The default delimiter is a tab character and output records are separated by a Unix newline. excelchop also removes any newline characters within a field.

Getting the names of all the worksheets

excelchop -p w myfile.xlsx