[R] Update of xlsReadWrite package

[Hans-Peter]

The (*windows only*) xlsReadWrite package has been updated and the new
version is available on CRAN.

xlsReadWrite natively reads and writes Excel files (v97 - 2003).


o Changes from v1.1.1 to v1.3.3 (versions between never really published)

  - ROWNAMES-support also for matrices (not only for data.frame)
  - explicit rowNames argument in interface.
        (stimulated by email Adrian Dusa)

  - support for DATE and TIME values: Excel date and/or time values can
    be retrieved as ISO-8601 format string.
    - Either explicitly with the colClasses entries:
      - "isodate" as "YYYY-MM-DD"
      - "isotime" as "hh:mm:ss"
      - "isodatetime"as "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss"
    - Or for data.frame an eventual date/time type can be automatically
      determined from the value(s) of the first Excel row (determined from
      the cell formatting as there are no real date types in Excel)

   - There are four DATE CONVERSION ROUTINES (taken from pro) which enable
     you to work with Excel date/times values:
     - dateTimeToStr     converts an ole datetime value to a string
     - strToDateTime     vice versa (depends on local settings)
     - dateTimeToIsoStr  }
     - isoStrToDateTime  } independent of local settings
        (date/time support stimulated by an email of Gabor Grothendiek)

  - new argument "stringsAsFactors = default.stringsAsFactors()"
        (proposed by Peter Cock)
    Remark: this is a *potentially code breaking change*.
            Until now strings have been retrieved as characters.

  - new argument "checkNames = TRUE"
        (proposed by Peter Cock)

  - colClasses entries modified:
    - "numeric" and "factor added,
    - "rowname" removed (is now a proper argument)
    - scalar values will be recycled (proposed by David Kinniburgh)
  - if explicit colClasses have not been given, the colClasses will
    be determined from the first 16 Excelrows)
        (stimulated by email David Kinniburgh)

  - empty cells for double columns come now as NA (before it was 0)

  - factors now handled in the Delphi (calls R function as.factor)
  - matrix output-type otFactor removed (not used)
  - fixed NA factors bug (thanks to Mark W. Kimpel)
  - range checks disabled again (flexcel needs this)
  - some other small fixes


o Function declarations as per v1.3.2
  - read.xls( file,
              colNames = TRUE,
              sheet = 1,
              type = "data.frame",
              from = 1,
              rowNames = NA, colClasses = NA, checkNames = TRUE,
              dateTimeAs = "numeric",
              stringsAsFactors = default.stringsAsFactors() )

  - write.xls( x, file,
               colNames = TRUE,
               sheet = 1,
               from = 1,
               rowNames = NA )

  - dateTimeToStr( odate, format = "" )
  - strToDateTime( sdate )
  - dateTimeToIsoStr( odate, isoformat = "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss" )
  - isoStrToDateTime( sdate )


o Download

  - CRAN (v1.3.2; from within RGui) or
  - http://treetron.googlepages.com/ (v1.3.3)
    - direct link to package:
http://treetron.googlepages.com/xlsReadWrite_1.3.3.zip
    - direct link to test-/demoscripts:
http://treetron.googlepages.com/xlsReadWrite_TestData_1.3.3.zip

  - the testscript is used for our internal "unittests". It will show
you many examples of how to use the package.


Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Hope you enjoy using xlsReadWrite!


-- 
Regards,
Hans-Peter