How do I open a Tab delimited Text file in Excel using Perl and OLE?

Originally I tried to open a XML file with Excel. But as this takes ages I parsed the XML myself into a Tab delimited text file. I thought I found the correct syntax in the internet. I tried below code using the values I recorded with an Excel Macro. I have an 18 column Tab delimited file. The error occures in the last line of below code when calling "Worksheets" Method.

Error message: Can't call method "Worksheets" without a package or object reference at ./PostProcessingD开发者_StackOverflow社区ev.pl line 70.

use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';
Win32::OLE->Option(Warn => 3);

use strict;

my $Excel;
my $Sheet;
my $Workbook;


$Excel = CreateObject OLE "Excel.Application";

$Workbook =  $Excel->Workbooks->OpenText({Filename =>"$inSelf->{'TXT'}",
  Origin => xlMSDOS,
  StartRow => 1,
  DataType => xlDelimited, 
  TextQualifier => xlDoubleQuote, 
  ConsecutiveDelimiter => "False", 
  Tab => "True",
  Semicolon => "False",
  Comma => "False",
  Space => "False",
  Other => "False",
  FieldInfo => [[1, xlTextFormat],
    [2, xlTextFormat],
    [3, xlTextFormat],
    [4, xlTextFormat],
    [5, xlTextFormat],
    [6, xlTextFormat],
    [7, xlTextFormat],
    [8, xlTextFormat],
    [9, xlTextFormat],
    [10, xlTextFormat],
    [11, xlTextFormat],
    [12, xlTextFormat],
    [13, xlTextFormat],
    [14, xlTextFormat],
    [15, xlTextFormat],
    [16, xlTextFormat],
    [17, xlTextFormat],
    [18, xlTextFormat]],
  TrailingMinusNumbers => "True"});

$Sheet = $Workbook->Worksheets(1);

---

Do you really have to parse TSV using Excel? If there is nothing fancy in your files, you might well use something like this:

my $file = 'some tsv file';
{
    open my $in,"<",$file  or die "$file: $!";
    while(<$in>) {
        chomp;
        my @cols = split /\t/;
        # do something with columns in @cols array
    }
}

If Excel is needed for a reason I cannot see, the problem is that OpenText method returns True/False and not Workbook object. This works:

use strict;

use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';
use Data::Dump;     # for dd

Win32::OLE->Option(Warn => 3);

my $Excel = Win32::OLE->new("Excel.Application");
$Excel->Workbooks->OpenText({
    Filename             => 'enter the full path to file',
    Origin               => xlMSDOS,
    StartRow             => 1,
    DataType             => xlDelimited,
    TextQualifier        => xlDoubleQuote,
    Tab                  => "True",
    TrailingMinusNumbers => "True"
});

my $Sheet = $Excel->ActiveWorkbook->Worksheets(1);
my $Data = $Sheet->UsedRange()->{Value};

dd $Data;    # arrayref (rows) of arrayrefs (columns)

---

Thanks for at all for your answers. This resolved my issue. All I wanted to do with the OpenText method was to convert a TSV file to Excel as this is the result format I require. As I couldn't find a solution on the web before I like to provide the complete code:

use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';
use strict;

Win32::OLE->Option(Warn => 3);

my $FileName = "Complete Path of TSV File";

my $Excel = Win32::OLE->new("Excel.Application");

# Open Tab separated Text file in Excel, all 18 columns are "Text" formated
$Excel->Workbooks->OpenText({
  Filename      => $FileName,
  Origin        => xlMSDOS,
  StartRow      => 1,
  DataType      => xlDelimited,
  TextQualifier => xlDoubleQuote,
  Tab           => "True",
  FieldInfo     => [[1, xlTextFormat],
    [2, xlTextFormat],
    [3, xlTextFormat],
    [4, xlTextFormat],
    [5, xlTextFormat],
    [6, xlTextFormat],
    [7, xlTextFormat],
    [8, xlTextFormat],
    [9, xlTextFormat],
    [10, xlTextFormat],
    [11, xlTextFormat],
    [12, xlTextFormat],
    [13, xlTextFormat],
    [14, xlTextFormat],
    [15, xlTextFormat],
    [16, xlTextFormat],
    [17, xlTextFormat],
    [18, xlTextFormat]],
  TrailingMinusNumbers => "True"
});

my $Sheet = $Excel->ActiveWorkbook->Worksheets(1);
$Sheet->Activate;

my $Workbook = $Excel->ActiveWorkbook;

# Replace the "*.txt" file extension by "*.xls" for Excel
$FileName =~ s/txt$/xls/;

# Turn off the "This file already exists" message.
$Excel->{DisplayAlerts} = 0;
# Save file as Excel 2000-2003 Workbook (command for Excel 2007)
$Workbook->SaveAs({Filename => $FileName, FileFormat => xlExcel8});
$Excel->Quit; 

---

try using Text::CSV. it supports user defined delimiters. See module description.