Question

Hi experts am trying to parse an excel file. its structure is very complex. The possible way i know are.

• Use Office introp libraries
• Use OLEDB provider and read excel file in a dataset.

But the issue is of its complexity like some columns,cells or rows blank etc.

What are the best possible ways to do this ?

thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I can recommend the ExcelDataReader (licensed under LGPL I think). It loads both .xls and .xlsx files, and lets you get the spreadsheet as a DataSet, with each worksheet being an individual DataTable. As far as I know from the scenarios I have used it in, it honours blank rows, empty cells, etc. Try it and see if you think it will handle your “very complex” structure. [I do notice one negative review on the site – but the rest are pretty positive. I’ve experienced an issue reading .xlsx if a worksheet is renamed]

I’ve also used the OLEDB approach in the past, but be warned that this has real problems in the way it tries to infer datatypes in the first few rows. If the datatype changes for a column, then this may well infer it wrongly. To make matters worse, when it does get it wrong, it will often return null as the value, making it difficult (or impossible) to tell a true null value from a datatype that changed after the first six or seven rows.