Convert Excel Range to ADO.NET DataSet or DataTable, etc

Question

I have an Excel spreadsheet that will sit out on a network share drive. It needs to be accessed by my Winforms C# 3.0 application (many users could be using the app and hit

Answer 1

This method does not work well when the same column in the excel spread sheet contains both text and numbers. For instance, if Range("A3")=Hello and Range("A7")=5 then it reads only Hello and the value for Range("A7") is DBNULL

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{   
   try
   {        
        DataTable sheetTable = loadSingleSheet(@"C:\excelFile.xls", "Sheet1$");
        dataGridView1.DataSource = sheetTable;
   }
   catch (Exception Ex)
   {
        MessageBox.Show(Ex.Message, "");
   }  
}        

private OleDbConnection returnConnection(string fileName)
{
    return new OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + fileName + "; Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=5;Extended Properties=\"Excel 8.0;\"");
}

private DataTable loadSingleSheet(string fileName, string sheetName)
{           
    DataTable sheetData = new DataTable();
    using (OleDbConnection conn = this.returnConnection(fileName))
    {
       conn.Open();
       // retrieve the data using data adapter
       OleDbDataAdapter sheetAdapter = new OleDbDataAdapter("select * from [" + sheetName + "]", conn);
        sheetAdapter.Fill(sheetData);
    }                        
    return sheetData;