Daniel, I have written a quite extensive and generic excel reader/writer library that uses xml to layout, format, and define content. I say that only to qualify my statement that the blank cell issue has never been a problem. I would also argue that although blank and null are similar, they are not equivilant. I think that poi is right to allow the coder to distinguish between the two. I understand that handling blank and null cells differently may cause more work in certain situations. I also understand that what I think may not really matter. However, I believe that making the api handle the difference internally would be a mistake.
Just my thoughts.... If you would like you are welcome to handle them the same way my wife does. :) Thanks, Marshall -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Noll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 7:58 PM To: POI Users List <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Blank Cells On Thursday 01 May 2008 20:24:10 Nick Burch wrote: > On Wed, 30 Apr 2008, Tom Holmes Jr. wrote: > > However, this only gets back cells with data in them ... so I don't know > > why there is even a CELL_TYPE_BLANK. > > If you put some data into a cell, then delete it again, excel will > normally still store the cell in the file, but with type blank. If you > have never put anything in the cell, then it won't appear in the file This is fair enough at the model level, but having it in usermodel is another story entirely. It seems to me BLANK and null mean the same thing for all intents and purposes, and yet the specifics of the file format are being pushed all the way to the top level. :-) > > The API docs don't offer much information on this. I presumed that > > getting the cell iterator would internally handle these null cells and > > they would register as CELL_TYPE_BLANK. +1, it would be nice if usermodel would either (a) replace missing cells with blank cells, or (b) treat all missing/blank cells as null. For the user of the API, the way it is now means checking for null and then checking for blank (and then if it's text, checking for empty text...) Daniel [The entire original message is not included] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
