Question

I am connecting to an Excel spreadsheet via OleDbConnection .

How do I order by ColumnNumber ? I’d like to do something like :
SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$] ORDERBY ColumnNumber
where ColumnNumber is a number like 1 or 2 ?
Any ideas ?
Note: the file I’m trying to open has no headers.

 private String BuildConnectionStringXLS()
        {
            String fileName = GetFileName();

            Dictionary<string, string> props = new Dictionary<string, string>();
            props["Provider"] = "Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0";
            props["Data Source"] = fileName;
            props["Extended Properties"] = "\"Excel 8.0;HDR=No;IMEX=1\"";
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> prop in props) 
            {
                sb.Append(prop.Key); 
                sb.Append('=');
                sb.Append(prop.Value); 
                sb.Append(';'); 
            }
            return sb.ToString();
        }




    public DataTable GetFullTable(int columnToOrderBy)
        {
            String fileName = GetFileName();

            DataTable resultDataTable = new DataTable();
            String connectionString = BuildConnectionString();
            OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(connectionString);
            conn.Open();
            OleDbDataAdapter da = new OleDbDataAdapter("SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$] ORDERBY ColumnNumber", conn);
            da.Fill(resultDataTable);
            conn.Close();
            return resultDataTable;
        }

Answer 1

I find it surprising that you are calling [sheet1$] directly without referring to any linked server.

Here are 2 approaches that are possible:

Using Linked Server