i'm using excel sheets that have dates in the following format: dd/mm/yyyy

i'm using the XLS library to bring that data into processing just to display them as text. i've been using the getString() function, but it gives me a float. for example, what appears in excel as 4/1/11 is stored in a string as 39172.0

what gives? what must I do to have processing just take the data, in whatever datatype, and just display 4/1/11 as it is stored in the excel document? i've tried using getFloat and getInt as well, but it would just return the same number.

i'm trying to run a simple loop in the setup, however it seems processing is simply skipping over it. you'll see i've put in four different println commands in the script: one before the loop, one after the loop, and two within the loop itself. when i run this code, the first and last println commands appear (the ones outside of the loop), however the ones inside the loop are not shown. there are no error messages reported. what the hell is going wrong? code:


circle[] CIRCLES;

void setup(){
  size(500,500);
  background(255);
  smooth();
 
  CIRCLES = new circle[30];
 
  println("line before loop");
   
  for(int i=0; i>30; i++){
   println("the initiating loop has run");

   CIRCLES[i] = new circle(random(0,width),random(0,height));
   CIRCLES[i].display();     

   println("and this line is proof");  
  }
 
  println("line after loop");
   
}