xlrd
's observed behavior reminds me of python's slicing notation, which is like this:
+---+---+---+---+---+
| H | e | l | p | A |
+---+---+---+---+---+
0 1 2 3 4 5
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1
(given a string of "HelpA" -- that's from the official docs)
So, if you start on 0
and end on 0
([0:0]
) you won't retrieve anything.
If anyone has a better answer, I'd love to hear it. Just wanted to document this.