4 ms·

So the limit for Excell is 65,000 rows for the old format, and one million-plus rows for the new format (from the article). Then I wonder, is there any tool t

So the limit for Excell is 65,000 rows for the old format, and one million-plus rows for the new format (from the article). Then I wonder, is there any tool that mimic Excell but with Sqlite as the backend? The limit of rows in Sqlite is 2 raised to the power of 64 (18446744073709551616 or about 1.8e+19). https://sqlite.org/limits.html https://sqlite.org/limits.html

weswpg 6y ago
apparently part of the problem here was simply the fact that they used the columns [1] (of which there are far fewer, even on newer versions of excel) instead of the rows [1] https://twitter.com/standupmaths/status/1313055411285774336?s=20 https://twitter.com/standupmaths/status/1313055411285774336?... edit: retracting this as the person who posted that tweet made a correction in one of the replies
- ryankrage77 6y ago
  about 26^3 columns, or 17576
013a 6y ago
XLSX's limit is 2^20, or just over 1.04 million (as the article says).
bigbubba 6y ago
Mimicking a spreadsheet with an RDBMS would be a neat hack, but I think the better solution is to simply use the database like a database. If an amateur carpenter is trying to hammer screws into wood, you hand him a screw driver, not try to invent some sort of hammer with a twisting mechanism that turns screws when you wack them. Use the right tool for the job, and use it like it's meant to be used. If the workers involved don't understand the right tool, then either train them or hire new workers who do.
- skykooler 6y ago
  > not try to invent some sort of hammer with a twisting mechanism that turns screws when you wack them. That's a thing, it's a manual impact driver. And sometimes it is the right tool for the job (for example, when you have stuck screws and a regular screwdriver would just strip the head).
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Sure, kind of. You hit the impact driver with a hammer, but I wouldn't call the driver a hammer.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
You could open a DB as a table view in OO.org, so presumably you can in LibreOffice. I'm surprised Excel doesn't integrate with Sqlite DBs. My naive view would expect tables <-> sheets; rows <-> tuples to be easy to do (for MS) and just don't touch the relational aspects??
- iagovar 6y ago
  Does it work with SQLite? Is it practical?
lmm 6y ago
Microsoft actually has a reasonable migration path where you can use Excel backed by Access and then transition to Access backed by SQL Server. But you'd have to recognise that you had a problem first.
contextfree 6y ago
Something sort of like this already exists shipped with Excel in the form of Power Pivot, which stores data in an embedded database inside the Excel workbook, and is supposed to scale up to 2GB and hundreds of millions of rows. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/power-pivot-powerful-data-analysis-and-data-modeling-in-excel-a9c2c6e2-cc49-4976-a7d7-40896795d045 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/power-pivot-power... As you might see from that link it's semi-integrated with the Excel interface, but the differences in the underlying model show through in some ways (like not being able to edit individual cells or use VBA)

weswpg 6y ago

apparently part of the problem here was simply the fact that they used the columns [1] (of which there are far fewer, even on newer versions of excel) instead of the rows [1] https://twitter.com/standupmaths/status/1313055411285774336?s=20 https://twitter.com/standupmaths/status/1313055411285774336?... edit: retracting this as the person who posted that tweet made a correction in one of the replies

ryankrage77 6y ago
about 26^3 columns, or 17576

013a 6y ago

XLSX's limit is 2^20, or just over 1.04 million (as the article says).

bigbubba 6y ago

Mimicking a spreadsheet with an RDBMS would be a neat hack, but I think the better solution is to simply use the database like a database. If an amateur carpenter is trying to hammer screws into wood, you hand him a screw driver, not try to invent some sort of hammer with a twisting mechanism that turns screws when you wack them. Use the right tool for the job, and use it like it's meant to be used. If the workers involved don't understand the right tool, then either train them or hire new workers who do.

skykooler 6y ago
> not try to invent some sort of hammer with a twisting mechanism that turns screws when you wack them. That's a thing, it's a manual impact driver. And sometimes it is the right tool for the job (for example, when you have stuck screws and a regular screwdriver would just strip the head).
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Sure, kind of. You hit the impact driver with a hammer, but I wouldn't call the driver a hammer.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

You could open a DB as a table view in OO.org, so presumably you can in LibreOffice. I'm surprised Excel doesn't integrate with Sqlite DBs. My naive view would expect tables <-> sheets; rows <-> tuples to be easy to do (for MS) and just don't touch the relational aspects??

iagovar 6y ago
Does it work with SQLite? Is it practical?

lmm 6y ago

Microsoft actually has a reasonable migration path where you can use Excel backed by Access and then transition to Access backed by SQL Server. But you'd have to recognise that you had a problem first.

contextfree 6y ago

Something sort of like this already exists shipped with Excel in the form of Power Pivot, which stores data in an embedded database inside the Excel workbook, and is supposed to scale up to 2GB and hundreds of millions of rows. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/power-pivot-powerful-data-analysis-and-data-modeling-in-excel-a9c2c6e2-cc49-4976-a7d7-40896795d045 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/power-pivot-power... As you might see from that link it's semi-integrated with the Excel interface, but the differences in the underlying model show through in some ways (like not being able to edit individual cells or use VBA)