INSTALL

Windows
=======

The instructions below relate to Windows only and are not relevant to other
platforms.

On Windows, the perl based routines (read.xls, xls2sep, xls2csv, xls2tab,
xls2tsv, sheetNames, sheetCount) will work with ActiveState perl but not with
Rtools perl.

If you have ActiveState perl installed and the pl extension is associated with
it (which the ActiveState installer associates automatically) then read.xls and
other perl based routines in gdata will automatically locate ActiveState perl
if you omit the perl= argument on these commands even if Rtools perl is ahead 
of it on your path. e.g.

	read.xls("mysheet.xls")

Alternately you can use the perl= argument with a path to ActiveState perl to
ensure it uses the right one. e.g.

	read.xls("mysheet.xls", perl = "C:\\Perl\\bin\\perl.exe")

Also ensure that gdata was built with ActiveState Perl and not Rtools perl.
This may require rebuilding gdata yourself like this:

1. Download and install the following (which all have automatic Windows 
   installers and are therefore very easy to install):

   R (you likely already have R so you can likely skip this one)
   http://www.r-project.org

   Rtools
   http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/

   ActiveState perl (ActivePerl)
   http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/

2. If simply installing gdata in the usual way from within R results in
   read.xls and associated perl-based routines not working then re-install
   gdata yourself like this:

   Download gdata_*.tar.gz from:
   http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gdata/index.html

   and install it at the Windows console (not from within R):
   Rcmd INSTALL --build gdata_*.tar.gz

   Note: Rcmd is normally found in C:\Program Files\R\R-*\bin and if that 
   is not on your path the above command should be written:
   "C:\Program Files\R\R-*\bin\Rcmd.exe" INSTALL --build gdata_*.tar.gz

   where the the path to Rcmd.exe should be replaced with the output of this 
   R command:
	   normalizePath(file.path(R.home(), "bin", "Rcmd.exe"))

   Note: On Vista and above you may need to run Rcmd as Administrator.

   Note: In the above the * in gdata_*.tar.gz should be replaced with the 
   current version of gdata as found on:
   http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gdata/index.html