Convert XLS to CSV

xls2csv.sh

# Generate a csv from xls using ruby with a HERE document
# uses ruby's 'roo' gem
# Creates output for every sheet separately
# Usage: xls2csv </path/to/xlsfile.xls>

xls2csv () {
if [ ! -f $1 ]; then
  echo "File '$1' not found."
  exit 1
fi
ruby  <<EOF
  require 'rubygems'
  require 'roo'
  file      = "$1"
  xls = Excel.new(file)
  xls.sheets.each { |s| 
    xls.default_sheet = s
      xls.to_csv("#{s}.csv")
    }
    puts file
EOF
}

Thanks for this code for converting excel to csv..but two questions i have

1. can we specify the separator for generating csv?
2. in this code when converting excel to csv its changing the date format (eg: there is field dob in excel it was mm/dd/yyyy) but in the generated csv its showing yyyy-mm-dd.. can we generate the values in csv without changing the formats.?