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Open a file or workbook object in spreadsheet software

Source: R/xl_open.R
xl_open.Rd

xl_open() is a portable utility designed to open spreadsheet files (such as .xlsx or .xls) or wbWorkbook objects using the appropriate application based on the host operating system. It handles the nuances of background execution to ensure the R interpreter remains unblocked.

Usage

xl_open(x, interactive = NA, flush = FALSE)

# S3 method for class 'wbWorkbook'
xl_open(x, interactive = NA, flush = FALSE)

# Default S3 method
xl_open(x, interactive = NA, flush = FALSE)

Arguments

x

A character string specifying the path to a spreadsheet file or a wbWorkbook object.

interactive

Logical; if FALSE, the function will not attempt to launch the application. Defaults to the result of base::interactive().

flush

Logical; if TRUE, the workbook is written to the temporary location using the stream-based XML parser. See wb_save() for details.

Details

The method for identifying and launching the software varies by platform:

Windows utilizes shell.exec() to trigger the file association registered with the operating system.

macOS utilizes the system open command, which respects default application handlers for the file type. Users can override the default by setting options("openxlsx2.excelApp").

Linux attempts to locate common spreadsheet utilities in the system path, including LibreOffice (soffice), Gnumeric (gnumeric), Calligra Sheets (calligrasheets), and ONLYOFFICE (onlyoffice-desktopeditors). If multiple applications are found during an interactive session, a menu is presented to the user to define their preference, which is then stored in options("openxlsx2.excelApp").

For wbWorkbook objects, the function automatically clones the workbook, detects the presence of macros (VBA) to determine the appropriate temporary file extension, and saves the content to a temporary location before opening.

Examples

# \donttest{
if (interactive()) {
  xlsx_file <- system.file("extdata", "openxlsx2_example.xlsx", package = "openxlsx2")
  xl_open(xlsx_file)

  # (not yet saved) Workbook example
  wb <- wb_workbook()
  x <- mtcars[1:6, ]
  wb$add_worksheet("Cars")
  wb$add_data("Cars", x, start_col = 2, start_row = 3, row_names = TRUE)
  xl_open(wb)
}
# }