I want to convert a spreadsheet (e.g. .xls or from LibreOffice Calc) to some text format, e.g. .csv, without evaluating formulas so the formulas are stored in the text file. I know that LibreOffice has an option "Save cell formula instead of calculated values" when saving as .csv and according to How to export spreadsheet to CSV without evaluating formulas Excel can do this too, but I'd like to do it on command line. I know that ssconvert from the Gnumeric package can convert on command line but as fa as I ca see there's no option to keep the formulas.
The bigger picture is that I want to write a script that takes two versions of an .ods file, converts them and shows the differences. When only one cell has really changed but many other cells depend on it, then I want to see only the real change.
I have used xls2csv under Cygwin. Just a Google search shows many implementations. I would start there.
http://search.cpan.org/~ken/xls2csv-1.07/script/xls2csv