Programming Challenge 21 - Preparing Data

My favorite data preparation tool is MS Excel. Considering that most of what I prepare is put into a relational database, it makes sense to lay it out, get it right and then import it. But not everyone has access to data import tools and in the past I've had to write the code to do the importing. Now it's your turn with the Programming Challenge for February 2009.

To make it a bit more challenging, you have to read data from an Excel file (.xls, not the newer xml type .xlsx files) and then output both a SQL File (it's just text) and a .csv (Comma Seperated Values) file. Don't panic! You can use any 3rd party free or open source library to do the reading. I know that Excel can output CSV but everybody should be able to! Don't forget that Challenge 19 finishes this week. As I'm away until the weekend, it won't get marked until then so Friday night (January 5, 2009) is the deadline for that.

• Link to Programming Challenge Twenty One Read a .xls file and output .sql and .csv files
• Link to Programming Challenge Twenty Calculate which numbers up to 5 million are prime
• Link to Programming Challenge Nineteen Fill a board with the same digit