[Wtr-general] Excel Or Text File?

[Bret Pettichord]

Charley Baker wrote:
> Chris has some salient points. Another advantage of using a delimited 
> file that you can use through Excel is version control. Using a 
> delimited file makes it easier to diff and/or merge through Subversion 
> or whatever your SCM tool might be as opposed to using an Excel file.
Personally, i've switched over to using Excel's XML format. Excel reads
and writes these files just like XLS files, except that you may need to
create a file association for them. But the code is pure XML and you can
easily diff your changes. In Excel, select Save As XML Spreadsheet.

I don't like CSV files. They do not retain column widths and therefore
usually look crappy when you first open them. I've been developing a set
of spreadsheet abstractions that makes reading them pretty simple. I
will work towards publishing them so that others may use them. But
first, there are Watir 1.5 bugs to fix...

Bret