Hi Amol. Dates come as numeric data. You've methods like getDateCellValue() (class HSSFCell) and HSSFDateUtil.isCellDateFormatted() and HSSFDateUtil.isValidExcelDate() to read it as a date or to check whether it's date formatted.
In case of formula you just have a cell type formula. In that case you either know the type of its content or you've to guess its type and take the most reasonable value (the one different from being empty). Guessing the wrong type doesn't result in an exception. It returns an empty value of the result type then. About empty cells read the thread "reading empty cells" in the archive (in November 2003). Regards, Karl-Heinz. -----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Amol Deshmukh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Mittwoch, 25. Mai 2005 18:17 An: 'POI Users List' Betreff: RE: Date cells Marc, Normally if the cell were not containing any data, I would expect it to be null or of type "blank". So could you post the relevant code snippet? Also, maybe you should run the code against another xls file that has an empty column with date format (I did that and the cell was returned as null) ~ amol > -----Original Message----- > From: Luce, Marc [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 10:06 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Date cells > > > I am trying to read an excel file and I am struggling with > Date fields. I have a column that has a custom date format > applied to the whole column and there is no data in it. When > I attempt to read this column (cell.getDateCellValue()) I > would expect it to return null. But it is returning today's > date. By the way, getCellType returns 'Numeric'. Is there > anyway for me to detect that that cell is empty? > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Mailing List: http://jakarta.apache.org/site/mail2.html#poi > The Apache Jakarta Poi Project: http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/ > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mailing List: http://jakarta.apache.org/site/mail2.html#poi The Apache Jakarta Poi Project: http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mailing List: http://jakarta.apache.org/site/mail2.html#poi The Apache Jakarta Poi Project: http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/
