excel plugin

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell wfu edu>]

My (GPL'd) econometrics program currently reads CSV files, but it
would be nice if it could read excel files directly since so many
people have data in that form.

I'm thinking of delving into the gnumeric excel plugin to see if my
prog could make use of it.  Any suggestions on what it would take for
a "third-party" program to access the plugin?  At the end of the day
I'd just want a data matrix out of the sheet; and I think I could
insist on hard-wired data (no formulas) though of course the ability
to cash out formulas would be nice.

One additional question: I presume the plugin is gnome- and
bonobo-specific so it would be a major deal to get it working with
the win32 version of my program?

-- 
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University, NC