How to read data from Excel (.xlsb) Binary File Format?

Question

I am using the POI 3.9 to read data from xlsx. But now I face an issue, the POI don't support the xlsb files, and I need to read data from xlsb programly. Does anybody know how to read data from xlsb programly? Appreciated.

Jolinejoliotcurie

Answer 1

Using poi you can read XLSB to DB, Structure(XML,...), List of Contents or etc.
The following code convert XLSB to List of row/comment lists and map for extra info.
Just you can customize the code according your needs.

Please find many examples from link; thanks to authors of poi.

// Main class

package excel;

import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.exceptions.InvalidFormatException;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.exceptions.OpenXML4JException;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.OPCPackage;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.DataFormatter;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.binary.XSSFBSharedStringsTable;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.binary.XSSFBSheetHandler;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.binary.XSSFBStylesTable;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.eventusermodel.XSSFBReader;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Excel {

    public static void main (String [] args){

        String xlsbFileName = "C:\\Users\\full path to .xlsb file";
        callXLToList(xlsbFileName);        
    }

    static void callXLToList(String xlsbFileName){
        OPCPackage pkg;
        try {
            pkg = OPCPackage.open(xlsbFileName);
            XSSFBReader r = new XSSFBReader(pkg);
            XSSFBSharedStringsTable sst = new XSSFBSharedStringsTable(pkg);
            XSSFBStylesTable xssfbStylesTable = r.getXSSFBStylesTable();
            XSSFBReader.SheetIterator it = (XSSFBReader.SheetIterator) r.getSheetsData();

            List<XLSB2Lists> workBookAsList = new ArrayList<>();
            int sheetNr = 1;
            while (it.hasNext()) {
                InputStream is = it.next();
                String name = it.getSheetName();

                System.out.println("Begin parsing sheet "+sheetNr+": "+name);

                XLSB2Lists testSheetHandler = new XLSB2Lists();
                testSheetHandler.startSheet(name);
                XSSFBSheetHandler sheetHandler = new XSSFBSheetHandler(is,
                        xssfbStylesTable,
                        it.getXSSFBSheetComments(),
                        sst, testSheetHandler,
                        new DataFormatter(),
                        false);
                sheetHandler.parse();
                testSheetHandler.endSheet();

                System.out.println("End parsing sheet "+sheetNr+": "+name);
                sheetNr++;

                // Add parsed sheet to workbook list
                workBookAsList.add(testSheetHandler);
            }

            // For every sheet in Workbook
            System.out.println("\nShort Report:");
            for(XLSB2Lists sheet:workBookAsList){
                // sheet content
                System.out.println("Size of content: " +sheet.getSheetContentAsList().size());
                // sheet comment
                System.out.println("Size fo comment: "+sheet.getSheetCommentAsList().size());
                // sheet extra info
                System.out.println("Extra info.: "+sheet.getMapOfInfo().toString());                
            }

        } catch (InvalidFormatException e) {
            // TODO Please do your catch hier
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Please do your catch hier
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (OpenXML4JException e) {
            // TODO Please do your catch hier
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (SAXException e) {
            // TODO Please do your catch hier
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

// Parsing class

package excel;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.eventusermodel.XSSFSheetXMLHandler;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFComment;

/**
 *
 * @author Dominique
 */
public class XLSB2Lists implements XSSFSheetXMLHandler.SheetContentsHandler {

    private final List sheetAsList = new ArrayList<>();
    private List rowAsList;
    private final List sheetCommentAsList = new ArrayList<>();
    private List rowCommentAsList;
    private final Map propertyMap = new HashMap<>();

    public void startSheet(String sheetName) {
        propertyMap.put("sheetName", sheetName);
    }

    @Override
    public void startRow(int rowNum) {
        rowAsList = new ArrayList<>();
        rowCommentAsList = new ArrayList<>();
    }

    @Override
    public void endRow(int rowNum) {
        sheetAsList.add(rowNum, rowAsList);
        sheetCommentAsList.add(rowNum, rowCommentAsList);
    }

    @Override
    public void cell(String cellReference, String formattedValue, XSSFComment comment) {
        formattedValue = (formattedValue == null) ? "" : formattedValue;
        rowAsList.add(formattedValue);
        if (comment == null) {
            rowCommentAsList.add("");
        } else {
            propertyMap.put("comment author at "+comment.getRow()+":"+cellReference, comment.getAuthor());
            rowCommentAsList.add(comment.getString().toString().trim());
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void headerFooter(String text, boolean isHeader, String tagName) {
        if (isHeader) {
            propertyMap.put("header tag", tagName);
            propertyMap.put("header text", text);
        } else { // footer
            propertyMap.put("header tag", tagName);
            propertyMap.put("header text", text);
        }
    }

    public List getSheetContentAsList(){
        return sheetAsList;
    }

    public List getSheetCommentAsList(){
        return sheetCommentAsList;
    }

    public Map getMapOfInfo(){
        return propertyMap;
    }
}

Nejd

Answer 2

Apache POI added support for streaming reading of XLSB (no write support) in 3.16. Apache Tika 1.15 now supports extraction from XLSB.

Nagging

Answer 3

In Perl, the Win32::OLE module can convert XLSB to XLSX. The downside: you have to have MS Excel installed. Here's some sample code based on what I used...

use File::Spec::Functions qw/rel2abs/;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';
use Win32::OLE::Variant;

Win32::OLE->Option( Warn => 3 );

my $xlsb = 'C:\Users\wohlfarj\Documents\File.xlsb';

# This block uses an already open instance of Excel, or starts a new one if it isn't already open.
my $excel;
eval { $excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application') };
  die 'MS Excel not installed' if $@;

unless (defined $excel) {
  $excel = Win32::OLE->new( 'Excel.Application', 'Quit' )
    or die 'Cannot start MS Excel';
}

# After all of the setup, converting the file is painless.
my $xlsx = rel2abs( $xlsb );
$xlsx =~ s/\.xlsb$/\.xlsx/i;

my $workbook = $excel->Workbooks->Open( {FileName => rel2abs( $xlsb )} );
$workbook->SaveAs( {FileFormat => xlOpenXMLWorkbook, Filename => $xlsx} );
$workbook->Close( {SaveChanges => xlDoNotSaveChanges} );

From here, the Spreadsheet::XLSX module reads the XLSX copy just fine.

Vicegerent

Answer 4

POI devs apparently don't have plans on supporting XLSB: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/poi-dev/201401.mbox/%3Calpine.DEB.2.02.1401250721280.31868%40urchin.earth.li%3E

It would be rather a lot of work, as you'd both need to update records to cope with the longer/different format, then redo all the marshling stuff to handle the very different way it does that. Thus far, no-one has wanted to put in all that work for the very marginal benefit

There appears to be a javascript library for reading xlsb, which you could use to export the data as JSON and read from java.

Bespeak

Over on POI, we just added a read-only streaming parser for xlsb files. It will be available with 3.16-beta3. – Nagging

Answer 5

This is just a workaround..

You can convert the xlsb files to xlsx file and use POI to extract data from it.

Have you tried it ? I know its not the correct answer but hope it helps. :)

Thaumaturgy

yes, but the problem is how to convert the xlsb to xlsx programly? – Jolinejoliotcurie

Apache POI doesn't support the .xlsb file format so to convert a xlsx to xlsb grammatically is not possible i guess. Need some more time for research i guess. – Thaumaturgy

Using the Microsoft Excel driver can read it. But I don't really like it--to be slave of Microsoft. – Jolinejoliotcurie

Anybody knows is there a 3rd driver can be used for xlsb? – Jolinejoliotcurie