Convert xls and xlsx files to csv and print to stdout.

xls2csv.py

#!/usr/bin/python
from sys import *
import xlrd
import csv


def to_utf8(val):
    if isinstance(val, basestring):
        return val.encode('utf-8')
    else:
        return val

workbook = xlrd.open_workbook(argv[1])
sheet = workbook.sheet_by_index(0)
csv_writer = csv.writer(stdout)

for i in xrange(sheet.nrows):
    csv_writer.writerow(map(to_utf8, sheet.row_values(i)))