Reading Values from MS Excel

[durgapras]

In java is it possible to read values from MS Excel.
If so could any one help me in doing this out

[gazoi]

Yes it is possible.

There are certain formats (such as CSV or tab delimited) which save excel sheets as text files.

CSV means comma separated variables.

You can then use a file reader to read these files into your program.

Save your excel file using one of these, open it in notepad and have a look.

Then read up on file handling in java.

Look up FileReader, BufferedReader and IOExceptions for a start.

[ArchAngel]

You can go one better that and use POI:

http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/

I had a play with it a couple of nights ago. It's really cool:

import org.apache.poi.poifs.filesystem.POIFSFileSystem;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFSheet;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFRow;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFCell;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class Test {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
		String cellName = args[0];
		short rowNumber = getRowNumber(cellName);
		short cellNumber = getCellNumber(cellName);

		POIFSFileSystem fs = new POIFSFileSystem(new FileInputStream("Test.xls"));
		HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook(fs);
		HSSFSheet sheet = wb.getSheetAt(0);
		HSSFRow row = sheet.getRow(rowNumber);
		HSSFCell cell = row.getCell(cellNumber);
		String value = cell.getStringCellValue();
		System.out.println(cellName + " == \"" + value + "\"");
	}

	private static short getRowNumber(String cellName) {
		String strNumber = cellName.substring(1);
		short number = Short.parseShort(strNumber);	
		number--;
		return number;
	}

	private static short getCellNumber(String cellName) {
		char letter = cellName.charAt(0);
		short number = (short)(letter - 'A');	
		return number;
	}
}

To use this code, create a spreadsheet "Test.xls"with some text in each of the cells. Then invoke this program:

java Test A2

...and it will print out the contents of cell A2.

The program is particularly robust, so treat it carefully.