in2csv --date-format not handling xls DD-MMM date formatted column

[johnandrea]

Column formatted with code DD-MMM with values such as 30-Dec remain unformatted via in2csv which outputs a single number such as 38820.0

Example: https://mi.lincolnshiremarriages.org.uk/bostonRD.xls

[jpmckinney]

For whatever reason, that XLS file encodes all cells as XL_CELL_TEXT instead of the date cells as XL_CELL_DATE. csvkit (more specifically agate-excel) only parses dates from XL_CELL_DATE.

So, there's unfortunately not much for csvkit to do here, because attempting to convert all possible cells to dates just in case they are intended to be dates is very expensive and also probably not what most people want.

You could try re-saving the XLS file after setting the cell type.