DescTools (version 0.99.44)

XLView: Use MS-Excel as Viewer for a Data.Frame

Description

XLView can be used to view and edit a data.frame directly in MS-Excel, resp. to create a new data.frame in MS-Excel.

Usage

XLView(x, col.names = TRUE, row.names = FALSE, na = "", 
       preserveStrings = FALSE, sep = ";")
ToXL(x, at, ..., xl=DescToolsOptions("lastXL"))
# S3 method for data.frame
ToXL(x, at, ..., xl=DescToolsOptions("lastXL"))
# S3 method for matrix
ToXL(x, at, ..., xl=DescToolsOptions("lastXL"))
# S3 method for default
ToXL(x, at, byrow = FALSE, ..., xl=DescToolsOptions("lastXL"))
XLKill()

Arguments

x

is a data.frame to be transferred to MS-Excel. If data is missing a new file will be created.

row.names

either a logical value indicating whether the row names of x are to be written along with x, or a character vector of row names to be written.

col.names

either a logical value indicating whether the column names of x are to be written along with x, or a character vector of column names to be written. See the section on 'CSV files' write.table for the meaning of col.names = NA.

na

the string to use for missing values in the data.

preserveStrings

logical, will preserve strings from being converted to numerics when imported in MS-Excel. See details. Default is FALSE.

sep

the field separator string used for export of the object. Values within each row of x are separated by this string.

at

can be a range adress as character (e.g. "A1"), a vector of 2 integers (e.g c(1,1)) or a cell object as it is returned by xl$Cells(1,1), denominating the left upper cell, where the data.frame will be placed in the MS-Excel sheet.

byrow

logical, defines if the vector should be inserted by row or by column (default).

xl

the pointer to a MS-Excel instance. An new instance can be created with GetNewXL(), returning the appropriate handle. A handle to an already running instance is returned by GetCurrXL(). Default is the last created pointer stored in DescToolsOptions("lastXL").

…

further arguments are not used.

Value

the name/path of the temporary file edited in MS-Excel.

Details

The data.frame will be exported in CSV format and then imported in MS-Excel. When importing data, MS-Excel will potentially change characters to numeric values. If this seems undesirable (maybe we're loosing leading zeros) then you should enclose the text in quotes and preset a =. x <- gettextf('="%s"', x) would do the trick. Take care: Changes to the data made in MS-Excel will NOT automatically be updated in the original data.frame. The user will have to read the csv-file into R again. See examples how to get this done.

ToXL() is used to export data frames or vectors directly to MS-Excel, without export the data to a csv-file and import it on the XL side. So it it possible to export several data.frames into one Workbook and edit the tables after ones needs.

XLKill will kill a running XL instance (which might be invisible). Background is the fact, that the simple XL$quit() command would not terminate a running XL task, but only set it invisible (observe the TaskManager). This ghost version may sometimes confuse XLView and hinder to create a new instance. In such cases you have to do the garbage collection...

See Also

GetNewXL, XLGetRange, XLGetWorkbook

Examples

# NOT RUN {
# Windows-specific example
XLView(d.diamonds)

# edit an existing data.frame in MS-Excel, make changes and save there, return the filename
fn <- XLView(d.diamonds)
# read the changed file and store in new data.frame
d.frm <- read.table(fn, header=TRUE, quote="", sep=";")

# Create a new file, edit it in MS-Excel...
fn <- XLView()
# ... and read it into a data.frame when in R again
d.set <- read.table(fn, header=TRUE, quote="", sep=";")

# Export a ftable object, quite elegant...
XLView(format(ftable(Titanic), quote=FALSE), row.names = FALSE, col.names = FALSE)


# Export a data.frame directly to XL, combined with subsequent formatting

xl <- GetNewXL()
owb <- xl[["Workbooks"]]$Add()
sheet <- xl$Sheets()$Add()
sheet[["name"]] <- "pizza"

ToXL(d.pizza[1:10, 1:10], xl$Cells(1,1))

obj <- xl$Cells()$CurrentRegion()
obj[["VerticalAlignment"]] <- xlConst$xlTop

row <- xl$Cells()$CurrentRegion()$rows(1)
# does not work:   row$font()[["bold"]] <- TRUE
# works:
obj <- row$font()
obj[["bold"]] <- TRUE

obj <- row$borders(xlConst$xlEdgeBottom)
obj[["linestyle"]] <- xlConst$xlContinuous

cols <- xl$Cells()$CurrentRegion()$columns(1)
cols[["HorizontalAlignment"]] <- xlConst$xlLeft

xl$Cells()$CurrentRegion()[["EntireColumn"]]$AutoFit()
cols <- xl$Cells()$CurrentRegion()$columns(4)
cols[["WrapText"]] <- TRUE
cols[["ColumnWidth"]] <- 80
xl$Cells()$CurrentRegion()[["EntireRow"]]$AutoFit()

sheet <- xl$Sheets()$Add()
sheet[["name"]] <- "whisky"
ToXL(d.whisky[1:10, 1:10], xl$Cells(1,1))
# }