# Read data from Excel **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 16, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566 "2006-01-16T15:48:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/1 "2006-01-16T15:48:27Z")
A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and want to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read the data? Thanks, Ken K. – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) [mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/2 "2006-01-16T15:54:30Z")
If you have access to the spreadsheets, the easiest approach is probably to export them to csv and write your own importer to read those csv files. If you’re running ruby on windows, you can also use the win32ole library to read the data directly from excel, though this is more complicated. I’m not aware of any library to directly access excel documents, but if anyone knows different, I’d really like to hear. Tom W. ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/3 "2006-01-16T16:37:01Z")
On 1/16/06, Ken K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > President > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) Excel has really good support for XML as well, so exporting to that format may be an option. – Larry W. [http://www.approachingnormal.com](http://www.approachingnormal.com) [http://www.welcometoparenthood.com](http://www.welcometoparenthood.com) [http://www.approachingnormal.com](http://www.approachingnormal.com) ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 5:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/4 "2006-01-16T17:07:10Z")
I thought of exporting the data to CSV format and I may still do that. The problem is that the data is highly structured - it’s not just a couple of simple tables; specific cells have specific pieces of data in them in addition to the tables. And yes, I’m using MySQL, so mysqlimport sounds very helpful. Is there some way to do the export to CSV programmatically? Otherwise this is going to be very labor intensive. Thanks for the help, Ken K. – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Will B. Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 10:26 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Read data from Excel What DB are you using to back it? If you are using mysql, just export the spreadsheet to CSV and use the mysqlimport command to pull the data into the DB. -Will On 1/16/06, Tom W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: If you have access to the spreadsheets, the easiest approach is probably to export them to csv and write your own importer to read those csv files. If you’re running ruby on windows, you can also use the win32ole library to read the data directly from excel, though this is more complicated. I’m not aware of any library to directly access excel documents, but if anyone knows different, I’d really like to hear. Tom W. On 1/16/06, Ken K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/5 "2006-01-16T16:27:58Z")
What DB are you using to back it? If you are using mysql, just export the spreadsheet to CSV and use the mysqlimport command to pull the data into the DB. -Will ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/6 "2006-01-17T02:01:09Z")
On 1/16/06, Ken K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Ken K. > > [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) > > ## removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid What I’m suggesting will certainly sound like nails on a chalkboard to most people on this list, but here goes anyway: If it’s highly structured, but consistently formatted, you may want to consider writing some VBScript (gasp!) to extract the data. ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/7 "2006-01-18T17:42:08Z")
Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/8 "2006-01-19T14:04:44Z")
Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ( [POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease # The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj[http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/), and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/). The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/9 "2006-01-18T03:37:22Z")
On Jan 16, 2006, at 6:46 AM, Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. > I?m building a web application for her (backed by a real db of > course) and want to import all that data. Is there a library > available to read data from Excel? Is there an easy way to upload > the spreadsheets and then read the data? Not the best approach, but the most convenient for me: install the Spreadsheet::ParseExcel \<[http://search.cpan.org/~kwitknr/Spreadsheet-](http://search.cpan.org/~kwitknr/Spreadsheet-) ParseExcel-0.2603/\> module from CPAN, and use a Perl script to transform the Excel data to delimited text. Scott ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/10 "2006-01-19T14:41:05Z")
Hi. I have used win32ole several times for exctracting data from Excel. If you under Win try this way. It is very easy to use. Only problem that it does not work properly with Non-ASCII symbols. Bug present in 1.8.2 and reported that it fixed in 1.8.4 ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/11 "2006-01-19T23:32:47Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/12 "2006-01-19T23:35:49Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/13 "2006-01-19T23:35:49Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/14 "2006-01-19T23:38:50Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/15 "2006-01-19T23:44:55Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/16 "2006-01-19T23:57:02Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 1:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/17 "2006-01-20T01:27:38Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 8:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/18 "2006-01-20T20:24:41Z")
Sorry about the multiple posts everybody. My email was acting very flaky yesterday. I could blame Outlook, but IÂ?ll just do what I normally do and blame Bill Gates directly. Sigh, Ken K. – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Ken K. Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 5:05 PM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: RE: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/19 "2006-01-19T23:41:52Z")
Interesting. Before I started digging into RoR, I was planning to do this project in Java and had looked at the POI library with that in mind. Now that thereÂ?s a port to Ruby, maybe itÂ?ll all work out. Thanks, Ken – Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. [http://www.kousenit.com](http://www.kousenit.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid * * * From: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)] On Behalf Of Thibaut Barrère Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 7:25 AM To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Read data from Excel Hi a bit late maybe, but have a look at this which I just discovered (not tested yet) : the poi ruby bindings ([POI Ruby Bindings](http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/poi-ruby.html)) =========== The POI library can now be compiled as a Ruby extension, allowing the API to be called from Ruby language programs. Ruby users can therefore read and write OLE2 documents, such as Excel files with ease The bindings are generated by compiling POI with gcj [http://gcc.gnu.org/java/](http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) , and generating the Ruby wrapper using SWIG [http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/) . The aim is the keep the POI api as-is. However, where java standard library objects are used, an effort is made to transform them smoothly into Ruby objects. Therefore, where the POI API takes an OutputStream, you can pass an IO object. Where the POI works java.util.Date or java.util.Calendar object, you can work with a Ruby Time object. =========== ## Thibaut [blog] [http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere](http://www.dotnetguru2.org/tbarrere) On 18/01/06, Mischa K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Ken K. wrote: > A client of mine has a ton of data stored in Excel spreadsheets. I’m > building a web application for her (backed by a real db of course) and > want > to import all that data. Is there a library available to read data from > Excel? Is there an easy way to upload the spreadsheets and then read > the > data? The easiest way to go about this is using the OLE DB driver in windows to extract the data trough SQL. Another way would be windows automation to save the data in the worksheets / export the files to xml. Both require a windows platform though. – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). ---
**Author:** ![kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e19b73/32.png) [@kousen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kousen)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566/20 "2006-01-21T15:40:26Z")
It is only labor intensive once though…I had to do this exact same thing, and while it took time to get all the data extracted, lined up properly, and inserted, you never look back. - Nic. [Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/read-data-from-excel/52566.md?page=2)