xlrd: error open_workbook

[Fabio Oikawa]

Hello.

I am trying to open an .xls (excel) file using xlrd, but an error message
occurs when I open the workbook.

I can open any other .xls file made by myself (either by MS Excel 2003 SP3
in Windows Vista or by OpenOffice 2.0 in Debian) using the
*open_workbook*function:

wb = xlrd.open_workbook('myworkbook.xls')

but when I try to open a file from one specific site, I get the error
message:

In [2]: wb = xlrd.open_workbook('balanco.xls')

WARNING *** file size (81192) not 512 + multiple of sector size (512)
WARNING *** OLE2 inconsistency: SSCS size is 0 but SSAT size is non-zero
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
struct.error                                     Traceback (most recent call
last)

/home/oikawa/DB/<ipython console>

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xlrd/__init__.py in open_workbook(filename,
logfile, verbos ity, pickleable, use_mmap, file_contents, encoding_override,
formatting_info)
    380         bk.parse_globals()
    381     else:
--> 382         bk.parse_globals()
    383         bk.get_sheets()
    384     bk.nsheets = len(bk._sheet_list)

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xlrd/__init__.py in parse_globals(self)
   1309                 self.handle_name(data)
   1310             elif rc == XL_PALETTE:
-> 1311                 self.handle_palette(data)
   1312             elif rc == XL_STYLE:
   1313                 self.handle_style(data)

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/xlrd/formatting.py in handle_palette(book,
data)
    550             "PALETTE record with %d colours\n", n_colours)
    551     fmt = '<xx%di' % n_colours # use i to avoid long integers
--> 552     colours = unpack(fmt, data)
    553     assert book.palette_record == [] # There should be only 1
PALETTE record
    554     # a colour will be 0xbbggrr

error: unpack str size does not match format

I ran the xlrd in both Windows Vista / Python 2.5 and Debian / Python 2.4.4
and got the same problem, so I suppose there is something wrong with the
.xls files (which can be downloaded at www.fundamentus.com.br --> "Dados
Históricos" menu --> "Balancos em Excel" --> choose any company). However, I
need the files in order to create my database system. Actually I want to
build all companies' informations in a mySQL database, and the fastest and
easiest way I found is to download .xls files, to get the data using
xlrd-Python and to add them in the mySQL database. Any sugestions for both
questions? Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Fabio Oikawa
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