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Excel has a very cool feature where you can declare that a range of cells is a table. It is a feature that allows you to use Excel very much like a database. You can add new rows as necessary, sort the table by columns, do some simple filtering, calculate the sum of columns, and more. Each table has a unique table name, and each column has a column name. Because these tables are stored in Open XML documents, we can implement some simple extension methods and some classes so that we can query these tables using LINQ in a manner that is similar to querying a SQL database. This post presents a bit of code to do this. The code and sample documents are attached to this post.
(Updated July 21, 2010 - Fixed a bug where the code would return the wrong value for cells in the table if the columns had been moved.)
Note: this code is presented as an example - a proof-of-concept. This code could be further optimized, so that it performs better (although it performs quite well as is). And it may be interesting in the future to modify the code to use a strongly-typed approach – as the code is currently implemented, if you misspell a table or column name, the code throws an exception. However, this code is useful as is for doing ad-hoc queries of Excel tables. I certainly will be using it! :-)
This code uses the Open XML SDK, either V1, or the CTP of V2. You can download V1 of the SDK here. You can download CTP1 of V2 of the SDK here.
Thanks to Brian Jones who suggested this project.
Following is a screen clipping of an Excel spreadsheet that contains a table:
You can see the four columns of this table: Item, Qty, Price, and Extension. In addition, in the Design tab of the ribbon, in the far left box, you can see that this table has a table name of “Inventory”. Using the code presented in this post, you can query this table as follows:
var query = from i in spreadsheet.Table("Inventory").TableRows() where (int)i["Qty"] > 2 select i;foreach (var r in query){ Console.WriteLine(r["Item"]); Console.WriteLine(r["Qty"]); Console.WriteLine(r["Price"]); Console.WriteLine(r["Extension"]); Console.WriteLine();}
When you run this code, it produces:
Book44288Phone41040
As you can see from the above code, to access a particular column from a table row, you can use a default indexed property, passing the name of the column:
Console.WriteLine(r["Item"]);Console.WriteLine(r["Qty"]);Console.WriteLine(r["Price"]);Console.WriteLine(r["Extension"]);
This allows us to write code that is easy to read.
The table class (returned by the Table method) has a TableColumns method that iterates the columns in the table:
// list all of the columns in the Inventory tableConsole.WriteLine("Table: Inventory");foreach (var c in spreadsheet.Table("Inventory").TableColumns()) Console.WriteLine(" {0}", c.Name);
When you run this code, you see:
Table: Inventory Item Qty Price Extension
Some time ago, I wrote some code that enabled querying Open XML spreadsheets using LINQ to XML, presented in the blog post ‘Open XML SDK and LINQ to XML’. I’ve added the code to query tables to the code presented in that post. The extension methods that enable querying tables make use of that code. The enhanced LtxOpenXml namespace now contains code for:
The code for querying word processing documents and spreadsheets is unmodified. Refer to the above mentioned blog post for details on using those extension methods.
The code that enables querying of spreadsheet tables is, of course, written in the pure functional style. No state is maintained, and all methods to query the document are lazy.
If you have questions about how to write functional code (like the code that implements the extension methods and classes associated with this post), go through this Functional Programming Tutorial.
I’ve provided a summary of the types and extension methods included in the LtxOpenXml namespace at the end of this post.
Here’s another example of a table that contains a few more columns with more data types:
Each row returned by the TableRows method is a collection of TableCell objects. I’ve defined explicit conversions between TableCell and some of the most common .NET types, so that you can simply cast a TableCell to your desired type. Here’s a query to list all vehicles in the table:
// list all vehiclesvar q = from c in spreadsheet.Table("Vehicles").TableRows() select new VehicleRecord() { Vehicle = (string)c["Vehicle"], Color = (string)c["Color"], Year = (int)c["Year"], HorsePower = (int)c["HorsePower"], Cost = (decimal)c["Cost"], AcquisitionDate = (DateTime)c["AcquisitionDate"], ExecutiveUseOnly = (bool)c["ExecutiveUseOnly"] };Console.WriteLine("List of all vehicles");PrintVehicles(q);Console.WriteLine();
I’ve written a PrintVehicles method:
public static void PrintVehicles(IEnumerable<VehicleRecord> list){ int[] tabs = new[] { 12, 10, 6, 6, 10, 14, 10 }; foreach (var z in list) Console.WriteLine("{0}{1}{2}{3}{4}{5}{6}", z.Vehicle.PadRight(tabs[0]), z.Color.PadRight(tabs[1]), z.Year.ToString().PadRight(tabs[2]), z.HorsePower.ToString().PadRight(tabs[3]), z.Cost.ToString().PadRight(tabs[4]), ((DateTime)z.AcquisitionDate).ToShortDateString() .PadRight(tabs[5]), ((bool)z.ExecutiveUseOnly).ToString() .PadRight(tabs[6]));}
When you run the above query, you see:
List of all vehiclesPickup White 2002 165 23000 2/22/2002 FalsePickup Red 2004 185 32000 10/21/2004 FalseSports Car Red 2003 165 23000 1/1/2004 TrueSedan Blue 2005 200 21000 2/25/2005 FalseLimo Black 2008 440 72000 4/1/2008 True
You can query for all executive vehicles, like this:
// list all executive vehiclesq = from c in spreadsheet.Table("Vehicles").TableRows() where (bool)c["ExecutiveUseOnly"] == true select new VehicleRecord() { Vehicle = (string)c["Vehicle"], Color = (string)c["Color"], Year = (int)c["Year"], HorsePower = (int)c["HorsePower"], Cost = (decimal)c["Cost"], AcquisitionDate = (DateTime)c["AcquisitionDate"], ExecutiveUseOnly = (bool)c["ExecutiveUseOnly"] };
You can write queries that select on data types such as DateTime:
// list all vehicles acquired after 2004q = from c in spreadsheet.Table("Vehicles").TableRows() where (DateTime)c["AcquisitionDate"] >= new DateTime(2004, 1, 1) select new VehicleRecord() { Vehicle = (string)c["Vehicle"], Color = (string)c["Color"], Year = (int)c["Year"], HorsePower = (int)c["HorsePower"], Cost = (decimal)c["Cost"], AcquisitionDate = (DateTime)c["AcquisitionDate"], ExecutiveUseOnly = (bool)c["ExecutiveUseOnly"] };
And of course, you can use all of the grouping, ordering, and filtering capabilities of LINQ queries:
// vehicles grouped by uservar groups = from v in spreadsheet.Table("Vehicles").TableRows() group v by v["ExecutiveUseOnly"];foreach (var g in groups){ Console.WriteLine("Executive Use: {0}", (bool)g.Key); foreach (var v in g) Console.WriteLine(" Vehicle:{0} Year:{1}", v["Vehicle"], v["Year"]); Console.WriteLine();}
I’ve imported the Customers and Orders from the Northwind database into a spreadsheet, where the Customers table is in one sheet, and the Orders table is in another sheet within the worksheet. Here is the Customers table:
And here is the Orders table:
We can now write a query that joins the customers and orders tables:
using (SpreadsheetDocument spreadsheet = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(filename, false)){ // list all of the columns in the Customer table Console.WriteLine("Table: Customer"); foreach (var c in spreadsheet.Table("Customer").TableColumns()) Console.WriteLine(" {0}", c.Name); Console.WriteLine(); // list all of the columns in the Order table Console.WriteLine("Table: Order"); foreach (var o in spreadsheet.Table("Order").TableColumns()) Console.WriteLine(" {0}", o.Name); Console.WriteLine(); // query for all customers with city == London, // then select all orders for that customer var q = from c in spreadsheet.Table("Customer").TableRows() where (string)c["City"] == "London" select new { CustomerID = c["CustomerID"], CompanyName = c["CompanyName"], ContactName = c["ContactName"], Orders = from o in spreadsheet.Table("Order").TableRows() where (string)o["CustomerID"] == (string)c["CustomerID"] select new { CustomerID = o["CustomerID"], OrderID = o["OrderID"] } }; // print the results of the query int[] tabs = new[] { 20, 25, 30 }; Console.WriteLine("{0}{1}{2}", "CustomerID".PadRight(tabs[0]), "CompanyName".PadRight(tabs[1]), "ContactName".PadRight(tabs[2])); Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} {2} ", new string('-', tabs[0] - 1), new string('-', tabs[1] - 1), new string('-', tabs[2] - 1)); foreach (var v in q) { Console.WriteLine("{0}{1}{2}", v.CustomerID.Value.PadRight(tabs[0]), v.CompanyName.Value.PadRight(tabs[1]), v.ContactName.Value.PadRight(tabs[2])); foreach (var v2 in v.Orders) Console.WriteLine(" CustomerID:{0} OrderID:{1}", v2.CustomerID, v2.OrderID); Console.WriteLine(); }}
This code produces the following output:
Table: Customer CustomerID CompanyName ContactName ContactTitle Address City Region PostalCode Country Phone FaxTable: Order OrderID CustomerID EmployeeID OrderDate RequiredDate ShipVia Freight ShipName ShipAddress ShipCity ShipRegion ShipPostalCode ShipCountryCustomerID CompanyName ContactName------------------- ------------------------ -----------------------------AROUT Around the Horn Thomas Hardy CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10355 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10383 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10453 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10558 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10707 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10741 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10743 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10768 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10793 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10864 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10920 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:10953 CustomerID:AROUT OrderID:11016BSBEV B's Beverages Victoria Ashworth CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10289 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10471 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10484 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10538 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10539 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10578 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10599 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10943 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:10947 CustomerID:BSBEV OrderID:11023CONSH Consolidated Holdings Elizabeth Brown CustomerID:CONSH OrderID:10435 CustomerID:CONSH OrderID:10462 CustomerID:CONSH OrderID:10848EASTC Eastern Connection Ann Devon CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:10364 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:10400 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:10532 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:10726 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:10987 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:11024 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:11047 CustomerID:EASTC OrderID:11056NORTS North/South Simon Crowther CustomerID:NORTS OrderID:10517 CustomerID:NORTS OrderID:10752 CustomerID:NORTS OrderID:11057SEVES Seven Seas Imports Hari Kumar CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10359 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10377 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10388 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10472 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10523 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10547 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10800 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10804 CustomerID:SEVES OrderID:10869
This section summarizes the LtxOpenXml extension methods and types that make it easy to work with Open XML SpreadsheetML tables.
For details on the extension methods and types for word processing documents and spreadsheets (other than Tables within spreadsheets), see the post, Open XML SDK and LINQ to XML.
This method returns a collection of all tables in the spreadsheet. Its signature:
public static IEnumerable<Table> Tables(this SpreadsheetDocument spreadsheet)
This method returns the Table object with the specified table name. Its signature:
public static Table Table(this SpreadsheetDocument spreadsheet, string tableName)
This method represents an Excel Table. Its definition:
public class Table{ public int Id { get; set; } public string TableName { get; set; } public string DisplayName { get; set; } public string Ref { get; set; } public int? HeaderRowCount { get; set; } public int? TotalsRowCount { get; set; } public string TableType { get; set; } public TableDefinitionPart TableDefinitionPart { get; set; } public WorksheetPart Parent { get; set; } public Table(WorksheetPart parent) { Parent = parent; } public IEnumerable<TableColumn> TableColumns() { ... } public IEnumerable<TableRow> TableRows() { ... }}
This class contains a number of properties about the table. In addition, it contains two methods, TableColumns, which returns a collection of TableColumn objects (the columns of the table), and TableRows, which returns a collection of TableRow objects (the rows of the table).
This class represents a column of a table. Its definition:
public class TableColumn{ public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public int? FormatId { get; set; } // dataDxfId public int? QueryTableFieldId { get; set; } public string UniqueName { get; set; } public Table Parent { get; set; } public TableColumn(Table parent) { Parent = parent; }}
The most important property of this class is the Name property.
This class represents a row of a table. Its definition:
public class TableRow{ public Row Row { get; set; } public Table Parent { get; set; } public TableRow(Table parent) { Parent = parent; } public TableCell this[string columnName] { get { ... } }}
The most important feature of this class is the default indexed property that takes a column name and returns a TableCell object. This is what allows us to write code like this:
This class represents a cell of a row of a table. It implements IEquatable<T> so that you can do a value compare of two cells. It also implements a number of explicit conversions to other data types so that it’s easy to deal with columns of various types. Its definition:
public class TableCell : IEquatable<TableCell>{ public string Value { get; set; } public TableCell(string v) { Value = v; } public override string ToString() { return Value; } public override bool Equals(object obj) { return this.Value == ((TableCell)obj).Value; } bool IEquatable<TableCell>.Equals(TableCell other) { return this.Value == other.Value; } public override int GetHashCode() { return this.Value.GetHashCode(); } public static bool operator ==(TableCell left, TableCell right) { if ((object)left != (object)right) return false; return left.Value == right.Value; } public static bool operator !=(TableCell left, TableCell right) { if ((object)left != (object)right) return false; return left.Value != right.Value; } public static explicit operator string(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return cell.Value; } public static explicit operator bool(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return cell.Value == "1"; } public static explicit operator bool?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return cell.Value == "1"; } public static explicit operator int(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return Int32.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator int?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return Int32.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator uint(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return UInt32.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator uint?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return UInt32.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator long(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return Int64.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator long?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return Int64.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator ulong(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return UInt64.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator ulong?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return UInt64.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator float(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return Single.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator float?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return Single.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator double(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return Double.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator double?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return Double.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator decimal(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return Decimal.Parse(cell.Value); } public static explicit operator decimal?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return Decimal.Parse(cell.Value); } public static implicit operator DateTime(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("TableCell"); return new DateTime(1900, 1, 1).AddDays(Int32.Parse(cell.Value) - 2); } public static implicit operator DateTime?(TableCell cell) { if (cell == null) return null; return new DateTime(1900, 1, 1).AddDays(Int32.Parse(cell.Value) - 2); }}
I hope you all have been enjoying Zeyad's articles showing some of the powerful solutions you can build
Is there anyway to use this with Excel Services?
Hi Carlos,
If you are writing a feature for SharePoint, you could use this approach to extract information from spreadsheets. Also, if you have spreadsheets in a document library, you could write a web service to retrieve the spreadsheets and use this code to query tables within the spreadsheets. Does this answer your questions?
Thanks, Eric
Hi Eric,
I am building a B/S software to run a management work with VS2008Sp1 and SQL 2005. I use Linq in my project. My problem is, could I use linq to update the Datum in Excel. if so, I can use LinQ to SQL to retrive data, and Linq to Xml to write that data to excel.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Richard,
Yes, this is certainly possible. The easiest way is to have a 'template' spreadsheet that you copy and modify, inserting the results of your LINQ to SQL query. In short, you want to modify the worksheet part, and replace the x:sheetData element and its child x:Row elements with new elements that you construct from your query.
-Eric
I am trying my best to find out a fast solution for the reporting part of my project. I have to export the data in to Excel. And I have realize that with automation Excel in the serverside(not a good solution), javascrip and gridview to out put the dataset from the Celint side. And now, I find that open XML maybe a better way to do that. Of course, I have write data to excel with openXml sdk. But I do not know how to manipulate the excel style(eg.the column with, border, and etc). Could you please provide some resource (eg. blog, article or website) for me to learn about that?
Do you have any suggestion for me?
What I need is a Stable and fast system to export data from SQL 2005 to excel. Thanks a lot!
And does it the linq that makes my exporting system slow?
Dernier post de cette série sur la suppresion des commentaires dans les documents PowerPoint 2007 (PresentationML).
Exporting the data into Excel is certainly doable. I have a screen-cast that I need to record that shows how to do this, but basically, the gist is to find the sheetData element in the worksheet, and replace that element with a new one that contains appropriate child row elements. Take a look at this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2008/11/04/document-assembly-solution-for-spreadsheetml.aspx , and in general, look at the other posts by Zeyad Rajabi on Brian Jones's blog.
One approach for doing formatting - it is easiest to set up a spreadsheet with your desired formatting, and then modify the spreadsheet rather than generating the spreadsheet with formatting from scratch.
Also, keep OpenXmlDiff in mind - this has the capacity to teach you how to format - save a spreadsheet, change formatting slightly, save it again, and see the differences. This shows you the markup necessary to change formatting.
Regarding speed, the portion to write out the Open XML, or read the Open XML using either LINQ to XML or Open XML SDK V2 will, in general, be very fast.
I really appreciate your help. I will learn more throug the resources which you and your firend provided.
Thanks again.
Comme à l'accoutumé, voici une brochettes de liens de la semaine sur Open XML. Posts techniques en vrac
By combining LINQ to SQL with LINQ to Objects in this fashion, you can write some pretty simple C# code that uses LINQ to join data across two separate, disparate data sources.
Is there any chance in the future, of providing additional functionality to the given example for Tables so that after manipulating the table contents in memory you can actualy save the results back? Your post was a great help for me, thanks alot!!
Hi Constantinos, I do have plans to show some code to update tables. This would be valuable, I think.
Nice post Eric. Have you tried out the open source Linq to Excel project (<a href="http://code.google.com/p/linqtoexcel/">http://code.google.com/p/linqtoexcel/</a>) to use linq queries against Excel? It uses OleDb and takes care of everything in the background. All you have to do is declare a simple class with properties that map to the column names in the excel sheet. Here's an example:
IExcelRepository<Customer> repo = new ExcelRepository<Customer>();
var londonCustomers = from c in repo.Worksheet
where c.City == "London"
select c;
foreach (Customer customer in londonCustomers)
Console.WriteLine(customer.ToString());