Question

The requirements for my application is to browse for an excel file, Upload the file , read each row from the excel file and insert into the database.

I am building this application in Windows Azure.
Prior to this I have successfully used OleDbDataAdapter to read the data from the excel file into the dataset.

The connection strings I used are:

FOR XLS file:

connString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" & strNewPath & ";Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=2"""

FOR XLSX file:

connString = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" & strNewPath & ";Extended Properties=""Excel 12.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=2"""

Will the following providers Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0 & Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0 be avaialable in Windows Azure?
Will approach also work in Cloud as well and is this the best way to access Excel files in c#?

Any new ideas and suggestions are welcome.

Answer 1

No, OLE providers will not be available under the Worker Role by default. It might be possible to have them later in a different VM setup though.

For the time being you are basically restricted to .NET-only options:

• EPPlus for XLSX
• NPOI for XLS