reading Excel Open XML is ignoring blank cells

Question

I am using the accepted solution here to convert an excel sheet into a datatable. This works fine if I have \"perfect\" data but if I have a blank cell in the middle of my

Answer 1

Here's a slightly modified version of Waylon's answer which also relied on other answers. It encapsulates his method in a class.

I changed

IEnumerator GetEnumerator()

to

IEnumerable GetRowCells(Row row)

Here's the class, you don't need to instantiate it, it just serves as an utility class:

public class SpreedsheetHelper
{
    ///
returns an empty cell when a blank cell is encountered
    ///
    public static IEnumerable GetRowCells(Row row)
    {
        int currentCount = 0;

        foreach (DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Spreadsheet.Cell cell in
            row.Descendants())
        {
            string columnName = GetColumnName(cell.CellReference);

            int currentColumnIndex = ConvertColumnNameToNumber(columnName);

            for (; currentCount < currentColumnIndex; currentCount++)
            {
                yield return new DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Spreadsheet.Cell();
            }

            yield return cell;
            currentCount++;
        }
    }

    /// 

    /// Given a cell name, parses the specified cell to get the column name.
    /// 
    /// Address of the cell (ie. B2)
    /// Column Name (ie. B)
    public static string GetColumnName(string cellReference)
    {
        // Match the column name portion of the cell name.
        var regex = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex("[A-Za-z]+");
        var match = regex.Match(cellReference);

        return match.Value;
    }

    /// 

    /// Given just the column name (no row index),
    /// it will return the zero based column index.
    /// 
    /// Column Name (ie. A or AB)
    /// Zero based index if the conversion was successful
    /// thrown if the given string
    /// contains characters other than uppercase letters
    public static int ConvertColumnNameToNumber(string columnName)
    {
        var alpha = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex("^[A-Z]+$");
        if (!alpha.IsMatch(columnName)) throw new ArgumentException();

        char[] colLetters = columnName.ToCharArray();
        Array.Reverse(colLetters);

        int convertedValue = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < colLetters.Length; i++)
        {
            char letter = colLetters[i];
            int current = i == 0 ? letter - 65 : letter - 64; // ASCII 'A' = 65
            convertedValue += current * (int)Math.Pow(26, i);
        }

        return convertedValue;
    }
}

Now you're able to get all rows' cells in this way:

// skip the part that retrieves the worksheet sheetData
IEnumerable rows = sheetData.Descendants();
foreach(Row row in rows)
{
    IEnumerable cells = SpreedsheetHelper.GetRowCells(row);
    foreach (Cell cell in cells)
    {
         // skip part that reads the text according to the cell-type
    }
}

It will contain all cells even if they are empty.