Question

In Excel’s COM API:

Given an ExcelRange object, how would I determine which rows and columns are contained within it?

I do not want the contents of the range, just the “coordinates” of the range, preferably as integers.

I did notice that ExcelRange has both a Row and a Column property, however these only indicate the row and column of the upper left corner of the range.

Note: I am using Delphi, however this question could be relevant to any language using Excel though COM, so answering using Delphi is not necessary.

Answer 1

Assuming a simple rectangular range then you use the Rows and Columns properties of the ExcelRange object. The top-left of the selection is determined by Range.Row and Range.Column. The number of selected rows and columns is given by Range.Rows.Count and Range.Columns.Count.

In complete generality an Excel range can be made up of multiple non-contiguous areas. In this case you use the Areas property of ExcelRange to iterate through the simple rectangular ranges that make up the complex range.

To illustrate consider the following code:

procedure DescribeExcelRange(const Range: ExcelRange);
var
  AreaIndex: Integer;
  Area: ExcelRange;
begin
  for AreaIndex := 1 to Range.Areas.Count do
  begin
    Area := Range.Areas[i];
    Writeln(Format(
      'Area %d: R%dC%d:R%dC%d',
      [AreaIndex, Area.Row, Area.Column, 
       Area.Row+Area.Rows.Count-1, Area.Column+Area.Columns.Count-1]
    ));
  end;
end;

I have not actually tested this code so I hope I have remembered correctly that indexing is 1-based.