Reading Excel file with C# - Choose sheet

Question

Hey Guys

I'm reading an excel file with C# and OleDB (12.0). There I have to specify the select statement with the name of the sheet I wish to read ([Sheet1$]).

this.dataAdapter = 
    new OleDbDataAdapter("SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]", connectionString);

Is it possible to select the first sheet, no matter what name?

Thank you.

Answer 1

See this answer on how to get the list of sheet names in order: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1164698/using-excel-oledb-to-get-sheet-names-in-sheet-order

And here's my version which is a little shorter:

public static IEnumerable<string> GetExcelSheetNames(string excelFile)
{
    var connectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" +
          "Data Source=" + excelFile + ";Extended Properties=Excel 8.0;";
    using (var connection = new OleDbConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        using (var dt = connection.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, null))
        {
            return (dt ?? new DataTable())
                .Rows
                .Cast<DataRow>()
                .Select(row => row["TABLE_NAME"].ToString());
        }
    }
}