converting an Excel (xls) file to a comma separated (csv) file without the GUI

Question

Is there a simple way to translate an XLS to a CSV formatted file without starting the Excel windowed application?

I need to process some Excel XLS workbooks with sc

Answer 1

my solution:

use Spreadsheet::BasicRead;

my $xls = 'file.xls';   
my $csv = 'file.csv';

   my $ss = new Spreadsheet::BasicRead($xls) or die "Could not open '$xls': $!";
   my $name = '';
   my $row = 0;

   open(FILE, ">$csv") or die "Could not open : $!\n";
      flock(FILE, 2) or die "Could not lock file\n"; 

        while (my $data = $ss->getNextRow()){
            $row++;
            $name = join(';',@$data);         
            print FILE $name."\n" if ($name ne "");
        }

      flock(FILE, 8); 
   close FILE;