Install xlsxio with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage

Commands and aliases

• xlsxio_csv2xlsx
• xlsxio_xlsx2csv

Project history

The GitHub repository was created on 2016-03-04 by Brecht Sanders. The README describes the project goals as standard C with C++ usability, a simple interface, small footprint, portability across Windows and Unix-like systems, and a deliberately small support stack.

The project separated read and write libraries early: libxlsxio_read for reading worksheet data and libxlsxio_write for generating simple data-table .xlsx files. The README is explicit about the tradeoff: it processes values and table-like data, while ignoring or not supporting richer spreadsheet features such as formulas, layout, charts, graphics, and multiple worksheets for writing.

The changelog shows a pragmatic maintenance history around build portability and edge cases: Windows and MSVC fixes, MinGW import-library support, CMake and pkg-config generation, minizip-ng support, hidden-row handling, sheet-name crashes, and memory-safety fixes from user reports and pull requests.

Adoption history

Adoption followed the library's narrow C API and included command-line converters. The README documents xlsxio_xlsx2csv for turning sheets into CSV files and xlsxio_csv2xlsx for creating .xlsx files from CSV, making the package useful both as a linkable library and as a shell-friendly converter.

The project also gained ecosystem paths beyond a source checkout: the README documents Conan installation, and the changelog records work to install pkg-config and CMake package files so downstream builds can discover the library more naturally.

How it is used

Common library use opens an .xlsx workbook, iterates sheets, rows, and cells, and frees returned cell values through the xlsxio API. For writing, callers create a workbook, add columns, stream rows and cells, and close the writer without buffering the whole file in memory.

The CLI tools are useful when a workflow needs spreadsheet interchange but not spreadsheet semantics: converting bulk tabular .xlsx data to CSV for scripts, or emitting a simple .xlsx file from CSV for users who expect Excel-compatible output.

Why package nerds care

XLSX I/O matters to package nerds because it is a compact answer to a common packaging pain: many tools need .xlsx interchange, but embedding a large office stack is unreasonable. This package exposes just enough Open Packaging Convention / XML spreadsheet handling to be useful in C programs and command-line pipelines.

Its history is also a nice example of small-library maintenance driven by build-system interoperability: Makefile, CMake, pkg-config, and Windows import libraries all matter as much as the file-format parser.

Timeline

• 2016-03-04: GitHub repository created.
• 2018-03: Changelog records build instructions, examples, UTF-16 read support, and minizip becoming the default backend.
• 2020-03: Changelog records memory-leak fixes, valgrind testing of the CLI converters, and Doxygen HTML documentation installation.
• 2021-09-01: Changelog records .pc and .cmake file generation and installation.
• 2022-11-02: Release 0.2.34 added minizip-ng support.
• 2025-09-12: Release 0.2.36 fixed builds against recent minizip-ng.

Related projects

• Related projects and formats include Microsoft Excel's .xlsx format, CSV tooling, expat, minizip, libzip, zlib, Conan Center recipes, and other spreadsheet libraries that choose broader document fidelity over XLSX I/O's small tabular scope.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/brechtsanders/xlsxio
• https://api.github.com/repos/brechtsanders/xlsxio/releases?per_page=10
• https://github.com/brechtsanders/xlsxio
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brechtsanders/xlsxio/master/Changelog.txt
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brechtsanders/xlsxio/master/README.md