✨ force read a physical file as a different format, which then will selects a particular reader. for example: force txt file as csv. But forcing xls as xlsx may not give you any benefit, because pyexcel-xls reads both xls and xlsx. related to: https://github.com/pyexcel/pyexcel/issues/148

pyexcel_io/io.py

@@ -23,6 +23,8 @@ def iget_data(afile, file_type=None, **keywords):
     :param sheet_index: the index of the sheet to be loaded
     :param sheets: a list of sheet to be loaded
     :param file_type: used only when filename is not a physial file name
+    :param force_file_type: used only when filename refers to a physical file
+                            and it is intended to open it as forced file type.
     :param streaming: toggles the type of returned data. The values of the
                       returned dictionary remain as generator if it is set
                       to True. Default is False.
@@ -147,6 +149,7 @@ def load_data(
     file_content=None,
     file_stream=None,
     file_type=None,
+    force_file_type=None,
     sheet_name=None,
     sheet_index=None,
     sheets=None,
@@ -158,6 +161,8 @@ def load_data(
 
     :param filename: actual file name, a file stream or actual content
     :param file_type: used only when filename is not a physial file name
+    :param force_file_type: used only when filename refers to a physical file
+                            and it is intended to open it as forced file type.
     :param sheet_name: the name of the sheet to be loaded
     :param sheet_index: the index of the sheet to be loaded
     :param keywords: any other parameters
@@ -169,10 +174,14 @@ def load_data(
         raise IOError(constants.MESSAGE_ERROR_02)
 
     if file_type is None:
-        try:
-            file_type = file_name.split(".")[-1]
-        except AttributeError:
-            raise Exception("file_name should be a string type")
+        if force_file_type:
+            file_type = force_file_type
+        else:
+            try:
+                file_type = file_name.split(".")[-1]
+            except AttributeError:
+                raise Exception(
+                    "file_name should be a string type")
 
     reader = READERS.get_a_plugin(file_type, library)
     if file_name:

tests/test_io.py

@@ -15,6 +15,16 @@ from zipfile import BadZipfile
 PY2 = sys.version_info[0] == 2
 
 
+def test_force_file_type():
+    test_file = "force_file_type.txt"
+    data = get_data(
+        os.path.join("tests", "fixtures", test_file),
+        force_file_type="csv"
+    )
+    expected = [[1, 2, 3]]
+    eq_(expected, data[test_file])
+
+
 @raises(IOError)
 def test_no_valid_parameters():
     load_data()