sheetCount <- function(xls, verbose = FALSE, perl = "perl") {
  perl <- if (missing(perl)) findPerl(verbose = verbose)
  else findPerl(perl, verbose = verbose)
  sheetCmd(xls, cmd="sheetCount.pl", verbose=verbose, perl=perl)
}
  
sheetNames <- function(xls, verbose = FALSE, perl = "perl") {
  perl <- if (missing(perl)) findPerl(verbose = verbose)
  else findPerl(perl, verbose = verbose)
  sheetCmd(xls, cmd="sheetNames.pl", verbose=verbose, perl=perl)
}
  
sheetCmd <- function(xls, cmd="sheetCount.pl", verbose=FALSE, perl="perl")
{

  ##
  ## directories
  package.dir <- find.package('gdata')
  perl.dir <- file.path(package.dir,'perl')
  ##
  ##

  ##
  ## files
  tf <- NULL
  if ( substring(xls, 1, 7) == "http://" ||
      substring(xls, 1, 6) == "ftp://" )
    {
      tf <- paste(tempfile(), "xls", sep = ".")
      if(verbose)
        cat("Downloading",
            dQuote(xls), " to ",
            dQuote(tf), "...\n")
      else
        cat("Downloading...\n")
      download.file(xls, tf, mode = "wb")
      cat("Done.\n")
      xls <- tf
    }
  ##
  
  sc <- file.path(perl.dir, cmd)
  
  ##
  ##

  ##
  ## execution command

  cmd <- paste(shQuote(perl), shQuote(sc), shQuote(xls), sep=" ")
  ##
  ##

  ##
  ## do the translation
  if(verbose)
    {
      cat("\n")
      cat("Extracting sheet information from\n")
      cat("   ", dQuote(xls), "\n")
      cat("... \n\n")
    }
  ##
  output <- system(cmd, intern=TRUE, ignore.stderr=TRUE)
  if(verbose) cat("Results: ", output, "\n")
  ##
  tc <- textConnection(output)
  results <- read.table(tc, as.is=TRUE, header=FALSE)
  close(tc)
  results <- unlist(results)
  names(results) <- NULL
  ##
  if (verbose) cat("Done.\n\n")
  
  results
}