read/write excel file in java

Question

i just want to read and write a excel file from java.No complex calcutionns needed I just want to creat a excel sheet with 3 col and n rows. Like printing one string in each cell.

Can anyone giv me simple code snippet ofr this? Do i need to use any external lib or do java have build in support for it?

i want to do following

for(i=0 ;i <rows ;i++)
     //read [i,col1] ,[i,col2] and [i,col3]

for(i=o;i<rows;i++
  //write [i,col1],[i,col2] [i,col3]

Answer 1

Apache POI can do this for you. Specifically the HSSF module. The quick guide is most useful. Here's how to do what you want - specifically create a sheet and write it out.

    Workbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
    //Workbook wb = new XSSFWorkbook();
    CreationHelper createHelper = wb.getCreationHelper();
    Sheet sheet = wb.createSheet("new sheet");

    // Create a row and put some cells in it. Rows are 0 based.
    Row row = sheet.createRow((short)0);
    // Create a cell and put a value in it.
    Cell cell = row.createCell(0);
    cell.setCellValue(1);

    // Or do it on one line.
    row.createCell(1).setCellValue(1.2);
    row.createCell(2).setCellValue(
         createHelper.createRichTextString("This is a string"));
    row.createCell(3).setCellValue(true);

    // Write the output to a file
    FileOutputStream fileOut = new FileOutputStream("workbook.xls");
    wb.write(fileOut);
    fileOut.close();

Answer 2

Try the Apache POI HSSF. Here's an example on how to read an excel file:

try {
    POIFSFileSystem fs = new POIFSFileSystem(new FileInputStream(file));
    HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook(fs);
    HSSFSheet sheet = wb.getSheetAt(0);
    HSSFRow row;
    HSSFCell cell;

    int rows; // No of rows
    rows = sheet.getPhysicalNumberOfRows();

    int cols = 0; // No of columns
    int tmp = 0;

    // This trick ensures that we get the data properly even if it doesn't start from first few rows
    for(int i = 0; i < 10 || i < rows; i++) {
        row = sheet.getRow(i);
        if(row != null) {
            tmp = sheet.getRow(i).getPhysicalNumberOfCells();
            if(tmp > cols) cols = tmp;
        }
    }

    for(int r = 0; r < rows; r++) {
        row = sheet.getRow(r);
        if(row != null) {
            for(int c = 0; c < cols; c++) {
                cell = row.getCell((short)c);
                if(cell != null) {
                    // Your code here
                }
            }
        }
    }
} catch(Exception ioe) {
    ioe.printStackTrace();
}

On the documentation page you also have examples of how to write to excel files.

Answer 3

A simple CSV file should suffice

Answer 4

If you need to do anything more with office documents in Java, go for POI as mentioned.

For simple reading/writing an excel document like you requested, you can use the CSV format (also as mentioned):

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class CsvWriter {
 public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException {

  String fileName = "test.xls";

  PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter(fileName));
  out.println("a,b,c,d");
  out.println("e,f,g,h");
  out.println("i,j,k,l");
  out.close();

  BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));
  String line = null;
  while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {

   Scanner scanner = new Scanner(line);
   String sep = "";
   while (scanner.hasNext()) {
    System.out.println(sep + scanner.next());
    sep = ",";
   }
  }
  in.close();
 }
}

Answer 5

.csv or POI will certainly do it, but you should be aware of Andy Khan's JExcel. I think it's by far the best Java library for working with Excel there is.

Answer 6

You can also consider JExcelApi. I find it better designed than POI. There's a tutorial here.

Answer 7

You can try SmartXLS,it is a commercial excel spreadsheet component which support most excel features like charts,images,comments,pivottables...,it also has a runtime calculation engine support 300+ excel formulas.