Converting .xls file to xml for webservice with iOS

Hey, am writing an application and I need to convert a .xls file to xml to feed it into a web service. All my google searches involve converting it by hand. I've not been able to find any tutorials on how to do this automatically through iOS,开发者_StackOverflow社区 does anyone know of a good tutorial or even a book that includes this?

Thanks, William

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You've got two choices; convert it to .xlsx and most of the work's done for you, or if you plan on simply 'unpacking' the .xls at the other end, you could just do <data type="application/vnd.ms-excel">(Base64encoded file contents)</data>, or something similar.

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After much searching I managed to find a solution where I send the .xls file as an .xls file like Flynn1179 suggested. I got confused into thinking that I had to send the file as xml as it was to a web service. Below is the code I used:

-(void)uploadFile:(NSString*)filename withExtension:(NSString*)extension{
    NSString* path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:filename ofType:extension];

    NSData *data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:path];

    NSString *urlString = @"http://server/path/to/webservice/call";
    NSMutableURLRequest *request= [[[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init] autorelease];
    [request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
    NSString *boundary = @"---------------------------14737809831466499882746641449";
    NSString *contentType = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"multipart/form-data; boundary=%@",boundary];
    [request addValue:contentType forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Type"];
    NSMutableData *postbody = [NSMutableData data];
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@\r\n",boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"uploadedfile\"; filename=\"%@.%@\"\r\n", filename, extension] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]]; //"uploadedfile" should be substituted for whatever variable the backend script expects the file variable to be
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithString:@"Content-Type: application/octet-stream\r\n\r\n"] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [postbody appendData:data];
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@--\r\n",boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [request setHTTPBody:postbody];

    NSData *returnData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:nil error:nil];
    NSString *returnString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    NSLog(@"returned string: %@", returnString); //Just for display purposes

}

Thanks for everyones help