Reading Excel file (.xls) in Java

Question

I want to read text from excel file in J2SE using NetBeans. I found an article here about using Apache POI and JExcelApi, but I'd prefer not depending on external packages. if possible, using only Java built-in packages.

This almost worked, but it gives me an exception error:

java.sql.SQLException: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified

Do I need to install some ODBC driver (if so, which driver and how to install)? What's the simplest way to solve this? please help, thanks in advance

Answer 1

You need to setup an ODBC driver that points to your Excel spreadsheet as a datasource. You can either create one using the Windows ODBC manager and reference it, or create it on the spot using the code here, at your same tutorial site.

Answer 2

I made a small application which read in an Excel sheet in to a JTable model very quickly. I think you should reconsider your usage of external libraries.

Answer 3

To summarize what was said already, accessing excel data from Java can be done via a two-step-process:
1) Set up the excel file as an ODBC data source.
2) Use the JDBC-ODBC bridge to access the excel data, using the standard JDBC api.

It sounds like you may have two problems:
1) The ODBC data source may not be set up, hence the "data source not found" error.
2) The jar for the JDBC-ODBC bridge driver may not be in your classpath, hence the "no driver specified". Google around for it. It's not hard to find.

Answer 4

If you want to just read in the data, converting the XLS file to a CSV file format would be the best way.