[Mono-list] System.IO.Package

[Edward Ned Harvey (mono)]

> From: mono-list-bounces at lists.ximian.com [mailto:mono-list-
> bounces at lists.ximian.com] On Behalf Of Maury Markowitz
> 
> I'm testing the waters for a Mono/Xamarin port of an existing VB.net code
> base. The important part of this code uses System.IO.Package to read and
> write Excel-compatible files. I see that there is some level of support for
> Package in Mono's WindowsBase, but this does not appear to be part of the
> standard build.
> 
> Can anyone offer a little color on this package? Is it suitable for
> production? If so, how would I go about building it on Windows/VS? Most of
> the examples here appear to assume Unix and/or CLI builds.
> 
> Perhaps someone has a built version as a PCL DLL they might be willing to
> send me?

I'm just guessing it's not in great shape.  My personal experience is that it's good to use mono core assemblies and try to avoid doing anything in lesser traveled areas - unless I'm mistaken, WindowsBase is probably pretty far down the list of things that are useful to Xamarin and hence, probably doesn't get much maintenance attention.  At a glance, I noticed, the latest commit to System.IO.Packaging was 2 months ago, (which is the most recent thing in WindowsBase).  

It was unfortunately a trivial small change, and prior to that, nothing in there had been touched in a couple of years.  So *either* it's so rock solid and stable that it doesn't need maintenance anymore, or it's just not getting maintained.  I'm going to have to say, it's clearly the latter.

So there's your answer.  That particular assembly is unfortunately out of maintenance for now.  Have you considered http://GemboxSoftware.com?  I'm sure there are other packages out there for editing excel files.  Gembox is the one I'm aware of and have used.