How to read and write excel file

Question

I want to read and write an Excel file from Java with 3 columns and N rows, printing one string in each cell. Can anyone give me simple code snippet for this? Do I need to use any external lib or does Java have built-in support for it?

I want to do the following:

for(i=0; i <rows; i++)
     //read [i,col1] ,[i,col2], [i,col3]

for(i=0; i<rows; i++)
    //write [i,col1], [i,col2], [i,col3]

Answer 1

First add all these jar files in your project class path:

1. poi-scratchpad-3.7-20101029
2. poi-3.2-FINAL-20081019
3. poi-3.7-20101029
4. poi-examples-3.7-20101029
5. poi-ooxml-3.7-20101029
6. poi-ooxml-schemas-3.7-20101029
7. xmlbeans-2.3.0
8. dom4j-1.6.1

Code for writing in a excel file:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    //Blank workbook
    XSSFWorkbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook();

    //Create a blank sheet
    XSSFSheet sheet = workbook.createSheet("Employee Data");

    //This data needs to be written (Object[])
    Map<String, Object[]> data = new TreeMap<String, Object[]>();
    data.put("1", new Object[]{"ID", "NAME", "LASTNAME"});
    data.put("2", new Object[]{1, "Amit", "Shukla"});
    data.put("3", new Object[]{2, "Lokesh", "Gupta"});
    data.put("4", new Object[]{3, "John", "Adwards"});
    data.put("5", new Object[]{4, "Brian", "Schultz"});

    //Iterate over data and write to sheet
    Set<String> keyset = data.keySet();

    int rownum = 0;
    for (String key : keyset) 
    {
        //create a row of excelsheet
        Row row = sheet.createRow(rownum++);

        //get object array of prerticuler key
        Object[] objArr = data.get(key);

        int cellnum = 0;

        for (Object obj : objArr) 
        {
            Cell cell = row.createCell(cellnum++);
            if (obj instanceof String) 
            {
                cell.setCellValue((String) obj);
            }
            else if (obj instanceof Integer) 
            {
                cell.setCellValue((Integer) obj);
            }
        }
    }
    try 
    {
        //Write the workbook in file system
        FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(new File("C:\\Documents and Settings\\admin\\Desktop\\imp data\\howtodoinjava_demo.xlsx"));
        workbook.write(out);
        out.close();
        System.out.println("howtodoinjava_demo.xlsx written successfully on disk.");
    } 
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Code for reading from excel file

/*
* To change this template, choose Tools | Templates
* and open the template in the editor.
*/

public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
        FileInputStream file = new FileInputStream(new File("C:\\Documents and Settings\\admin\\Desktop\\imp data\\howtodoinjava_demo.xlsx"));

        //Create Workbook instance holding reference to .xlsx file
        XSSFWorkbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook(file);

        //Get first/desired sheet from the workbook
        XSSFSheet sheet = workbook.getSheetAt(0);

        //Iterate through each rows one by one
        Iterator<Row> rowIterator = sheet.iterator();
        while (rowIterator.hasNext())
        {
            Row row = rowIterator.next();
            //For each row, iterate through all the columns
            Iterator<Cell> cellIterator = row.cellIterator();

            while (cellIterator.hasNext()) 
            {
                Cell cell = cellIterator.next();
                //Check the cell type and format accordingly
                switch (cell.getCellType()) 
                {
                    case Cell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC:
                        System.out.print(cell.getNumericCellValue() + "\t");
                        break;
                    case Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
                        System.out.print(cell.getStringCellValue() + "\t");
                        break;
                }
            }
            System.out.println("");
        }
        file.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}