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If you read the article (perhaps its been updated?), they were using the old XLS format and they hit the limit at 64,000 lines PHE had set up an automatic proc
by codeulike 6y ago
If you read the article (perhaps its been updated?), they were using the old XLS format and they hit the limit at 64,000 lines
PHE had set up an automatic process to pull this data together into Excel templates so that it could then be uploaded to a central system and made available to the NHS Test and Trace team as well as other government computer dashboards.
The problem is that the PHE developers picked an old file format to do this - known as XLS.
As a consequence, each template could handle only about 65,000 rows of data rather than the one million-plus rows that Excel is actually capable of.
- sct202 6y agoDid they pick XLS because it's easier to parse or something? I can't imagine why someone would pick a format that was largely replaced 10 years ago.
- freeone3000 6y agoMoving from XLS to XLSX will break your macros and would require all machines to be running Office 2007 or later.
- shmel 6y agoOffice 2007 was like... 13 years ago, what's the problem?
- gridlockd 6y agoCompatibility. It's reasonable to predict that some of the participating entities are running software that is at least a decade old.
- codeulike 6y agoIndeed
- mark-r 6y agoInertia, most likely. They were using XLS 10 years ago and never saw a reason to change.
- vharuck 6y agoIf somebody finds it easier to do this process using Excel than with a scripting language, I wouldn't expect them to know the differences between file formats. I would be surprised if they understood the concepts behind file formats. They may have chosen XLS because they used Excel back when that was default, and now they don't want to "risk" anything by switching horses mid-stream.
- gridlockd 6y agoLike I said, that's the way I heard it, the way it was narrated to me. The Guardian reported my version: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-may-have-caused-loss-of-16000-covid-tests-in-england https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-m... CSV would to me make more sense than an outdated binary format like XLS, but either story is plausible.