Hi and welcome. We discuss everything here. I've actually started on
the feature you mention, however its largely undocumented.
Some work has been done on the low level binary record but its not
committed. I've not yet figured out what all the fields mean.
Although this particular record is not documented you might find the
"Excel 97 Developer's Kit" (out of print, Microsoft Press, no
restrictive covenants, available on Amazon.com) helpful for
understanding the file format.
You can also use org.apache.poi.dev.BiffViewer which displays
information about all of the records we've implemented up until now. It
identified "UNKNOWN" records and prints out hex dumps. By creating a
basic spreadsheet, saving, adding a named range, running BiffViewer on
both of them and then using the UNIX diff command you can see what gets
added to the sheet. Some of it makes immediate sense (row/col and or
row/col-row/col), other parts of it seem to change based on various
factors and you'll have to reach for the inference.
(note to self: add this to the HSSF docs as a committer how/to)
Investigate the generate-records target of our build. We use XML
descriptors to generate the Java code (which sure beats the heck out of
my original PERL scripts I used ;-) for low level records. The
generator is kinda alpha-ish right now and could use some enhancement,
so you may find that to be about 1/2 of the work. Notice I put this in
org.apache.poi.hssf.record.definitions. For new records I plan to
generate the basic stub in "definitions" and extend it in the "records"
package.
One thing to note: ensure any participants in this process have never
signed a "Non Disclosure Agreement" with Microsoft, and have not
received any information covered by such an agreement. If they have
they'll not be able to participate in the POI project.
Hows that for starters? Feel free to ask questions!
Thanks,
Andy
PS - Here is the record definition so far (it currently reflects the
structure of a garden variety single named cell -- ranges have two
col/row pairs instead of one)
<record id="0x18" name="NamedCell" package="org.apache.poi.hssf.record.definitions">
<suffix>Record</suffix>
<extends>Record</extends>
<description>The NamedCell record describes defined names in the workbook
(p330 - Excel 97 Developer's Kit)
</description>
<author>Andrew C. Oliver</author>
<fields>
<field type="int" size="2" name="zero" description="this field is always 0"/>
<field type="int" size="2" name="strlen" description="the length of the name
string"/>
<field type="int" size="2" name="options" description="options"/>
<field type="int" size="8" name="unknown" description="so far 0'd
unknonwn bytes"/>
<field type="int" size="1" name="unicode" description="purely a guess
but there is probably a unicode flag here"/>
<field type="string" size="var" name="NameString" description="value
string"/>
<field type="int" size="1" name="rangetype" description="0x3a for a cell
and 0x3b for a range of cells"/>
<field type="int" size="2" name="zero2" description="unknown short thats
always 0"/>
<field type="int" size="2" name="column" description="column"/>
<field type="int" size="2" name="row" description="row"/>
</fields>
</record>
On Sun, 2002-04-07 at 09:29, Tal Moshaiov wrote:
> Greetings Group !
>
> My name is Tal Moshaiov and I'm a Java Team Leader in Vista Portal Software Inc.
> Currently we're considering integrating the HSSF implementation in one of our future
>products.
> I must say I enjoy this effort. The work you guys have done is great - and we'd like
>to join and help.
> Mainly we're interested in the named range support.
> Is there any work done/planned on this issue ?
> If not, how can we start developing ? Is there a common design group in which we can
>discuss design and implemention issues ?
>
> We're looking forward to start the fun :-)
>
> Tal
>
> ----------------------------------
> Tal Moshaiov
> Applications Development
> VistaPortal Software, Inc.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Phone: 972-3-6126188
> Fax: 972-3-6126189
> www.vistaoprtal.com
>
--
http://www.superlinksoftware.com
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi - port of Excel/Word/OLE 2 Compound
Document
format to java
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html
- fix java generics!
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to
vote.
-Ambassador Kosh
