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From: Daniele Futtorovic <da.futt.news@laposte-dot-net.invalid>
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Subject: Re: Displaying a ragged array
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 15:30:47 +0200
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On 2018-09-19 20:25, Eric Sosman wrote:
>     One further possibility (only you can say whether it's "possible" or
> "out of the question"): Store the data as actual spreadsheet files --
> as .ods rather than as .csv, for LibreOffice.  That way you can set up
> the proper formatting (all "Text," most likely) to begin with, and the
> spreadsheet will remember it and preserve it each time it's opened.
> Java tools for reading and writing ODF exist (I know of jOpenDocument
> and ODFDOM, although the freely-available documentation isn't great),
> or you can even use UNO to control a running LibreOffice instance from
> Java.  I found the official ODF spec rather daunting and gave up trying
> to read it; nonetheless I was able to reverse-engineer enough of the
> format to load simple .ods spreadsheets.  Unsupported code available on
> request.

I remember using the (Star|Open|Libre)Office API from Java to create PDF
files, a couple years ago. It was a harrowing experience - akin to the
COM mess (which is to say that you can still make something worthwhile
out of it).

CSV is a good data format. Until your process involves a human opening
those files in a spreadsheet editor.

-- 
DF.