Using Excel OleDb to get sheet names IN SHEET ORDER

user_6722 0
Viewed 212708

I'm using OleDb to read from an excel workbook with many sheets.

I need to read the sheet names, but I need them in the order they are defined in the spreadsheet; so If I have a file that looks like this;

|_____|_____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
|_____|_____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
|_____|_____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
\__GERMANY__/\__UK__/\__IRELAND__/

Then I need to get the dictionary

1="GERMANY", 
2="UK", 
3="IRELAND"

I've tried using OleDbConnection.GetOleDbSchemaTable(), and that gives me the list of names, but it alphabetically sorts them. The alpha-sort means I don't know which sheet number a particular name corresponds to. So I get;

GERMANY, IRELAND, UK

which has changed the order of UK and IRELAND.

The reason I need it to be sorted is that I have to let the user choose a range of data by name or index; they can ask for 'all the data from GERMANY to IRELAND' or 'data from sheet 1 to sheet 3'.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

if I could use the office interop classes, this would be straightforward. Unfortunately, I can't because the interop classes don't work reliably in non-interactive environments such as windows services and ASP.NET sites, so I needed to use OLEDB.

oledb server-side excel c#
11 Answers

Can you not just loop through the sheets from 0 to Count of names -1? that way you should get them in the correct order.

Edit

I noticed through the comments that there are a lot of concerns about using the Interop classes to retrieve the sheet names. Therefore here is an example using OLEDB to retrieve them:

/// <summary>
/// This method retrieves the excel sheet names from 
/// an excel workbook.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="excelFile">The excel file.</param>
/// <returns>String[]</returns>
private String[] GetExcelSheetNames(string excelFile)
{
    OleDbConnection objConn = null;
    System.Data.DataTable dt = null;

    try
    {
        // Connection String. Change the excel file to the file you
        // will search.
        String connString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" + 
          "Data Source=" + excelFile + ";Extended Properties=Excel 8.0;";
        // Create connection object by using the preceding connection string.
        objConn = new OleDbConnection(connString);
        // Open connection with the database.
        objConn.Open();
        // Get the data table containg the schema guid.
        dt = objConn.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, null);

        if(dt == null)
        {
           return null;
        }

        String[] excelSheets = new String[dt.Rows.Count];
        int i = 0;

        // Add the sheet name to the string array.
        foreach(DataRow row in dt.Rows)
        {
           excelSheets[i] = row["TABLE_NAME"].ToString();
           i++;
        }

        // Loop through all of the sheets if you want too...
        for(int j=0; j < excelSheets.Length; j++)
        {
            // Query each excel sheet.
        }

        return excelSheets;
   }
   catch(Exception ex)
   {
       return null;
   }
   finally
   {
      // Clean up.
      if(objConn != null)
      {
          objConn.Close();
          objConn.Dispose();
      }
      if(dt != null)
      {
          dt.Dispose();
      }
   }
}

Extracted from Article on the CodeProject.

user_825860

This is short, fast, safe, and usable...

public static List<string> ToExcelsSheetList(string excelFilePath)
{
    List<string> sheets = new List<string>();
    using (OleDbConnection connection = 
            new OleDbConnection((excelFilePath.TrimEnd().ToLower().EndsWith("x")) 
            ? "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source='" + excelFilePath + "';" + "Extended Properties='Excel 12.0 Xml;HDR=YES;'"
            : "provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source='" + excelFilePath + "';Extended Properties=Excel 8.0;"))
    {
        connection.Open();
        DataTable dt = connection.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, null);
        foreach (DataRow drSheet in dt.Rows)
            if (drSheet["TABLE_NAME"].ToString().Contains("$"))
            {
                string s = drSheet["TABLE_NAME"].ToString();
                sheets.Add(s.StartsWith("'")?s.Substring(1, s.Length - 3): s.Substring(0, s.Length - 1));
            }
        connection.Close();
    }
    return sheets;
}
user_52588090

Another way:

a xls(x) file is just a collection of *.xml files stored in a *.zip container. unzip the file "app.xml" in the folder docProps.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="true"?>
-<Properties xmlns:vt="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/docPropsVTypes" xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/extended-properties">
<TotalTime>0</TotalTime>
<Application>Microsoft Excel</Application>
<DocSecurity>0</DocSecurity>
<ScaleCrop>false</ScaleCrop>
-<HeadingPairs>
  -<vt:vector baseType="variant" size="2">
    -<vt:variant>
      <vt:lpstr>Arbeitsblätter</vt:lpstr>
    </vt:variant>
    -<vt:variant>
      <vt:i4>4</vt:i4>
    </vt:variant>
  </vt:vector>
</HeadingPairs>
-<TitlesOfParts>
  -<vt:vector baseType="lpstr" size="4">
    <vt:lpstr>Tabelle3</vt:lpstr>
    <vt:lpstr>Tabelle4</vt:lpstr>
    <vt:lpstr>Tabelle1</vt:lpstr>
    <vt:lpstr>Tabelle2</vt:lpstr>
  </vt:vector>
</TitlesOfParts>
<Company/>
<LinksUpToDate>false</LinksUpToDate>
<SharedDoc>false</SharedDoc>
<HyperlinksChanged>false</HyperlinksChanged>
<AppVersion>14.0300</AppVersion>
</Properties>

The file is a german file (Arbeitsblätter = worksheets). The table names (Tabelle3 etc) are in the correct order. You just need to read these tags;)

regards

user_29834100
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