Java: excel to csv date conversion issue with Apache Poi

Question

When using below utility to convert large excel files to csv, some date values are converted incorrectly due to excel cell format defined as *format.

Code Location : https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/poi/trunk/src/examples/src/org/apache/poi/xssf/eventusermodel/XLSX2CSV.java

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package org.apache.poi.xssf.eventusermodel;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.PrintStream;

import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;

import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.exceptions.OpenXML4JException;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.OPCPackage;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackageAccess;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.DataFormatter;
import org.apache.poi.ss.util.CellAddress;
import org.apache.poi.ss.util.CellReference;
import org.apache.poi.util.SAXHelper;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.eventusermodel.XSSFSheetXMLHandler.SheetContentsHandler;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.extractor.XSSFEventBasedExcelExtractor;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.model.StylesTable;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFComment;
import org.xml.sax.ContentHandler;
import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.XMLReader;

/**
 * A rudimentary XLSX -> CSV processor modeled on the
 * POI sample program XLS2CSVmra from the package
 * org.apache.poi.hssf.eventusermodel.examples.
 * As with the HSSF version, this tries to spot missing
 *  rows and cells, and output empty entries for them.
 * <p/>
 * Data sheets are read using a SAX parser to keep the
 * memory footprint relatively small, so this should be
 * able to read enormous workbooks.  The styles table and
 * the shared-string table must be kept in memory.  The
 * standard POI styles table class is used, but a custom
 * (read-only) class is used for the shared string table
 * because the standard POI SharedStringsTable grows very
 * quickly with the number of unique strings.
 * <p/>
 * For a more advanced implementation of SAX event parsing
 * of XLSX files, see {@link XSSFEventBasedExcelExtractor}
 * and {@link XSSFSheetXMLHandler}. Note that for many cases,
 * it may be possible to simply use those with a custom 
 * {@link SheetContentsHandler} and no SAX code needed of
 * your own!
 */
public class XLSX2CSV {
    /**
     * Uses the XSSF Event SAX helpers to do most of the work
     *  of parsing the Sheet XML, and outputs the contents
     *  as a (basic) CSV.
     */
    private class SheetToCSV implements SheetContentsHandler {
        private boolean firstCellOfRow = false;
        private int currentRow = -1;
        private int currentCol = -1;

        private void outputMissingRows(int number) {
            for (int i=0; i<number; i++) {
                for (int j=0; j<minColumns; j++) {
                    output.append(',');
                }
                output.append('\n');
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void startRow(int rowNum) {
            // If there were gaps, output the missing rows
            outputMissingRows(rowNum-currentRow-1);
            // Prepare for this row
            firstCellOfRow = true;
            currentRow = rowNum;
            currentCol = -1;
        }

        @Override
        public void endRow(int rowNum) {
            // Ensure the minimum number of columns
            for (int i=currentCol; i<minColumns; i++) {
                output.append(',');
            }
            output.append('\n');
        }

        @Override
        public void cell(String cellReference, String formattedValue,
                XSSFComment comment) {
            if (firstCellOfRow) {
                firstCellOfRow = false;
            } else {
                output.append(',');
            }

            // gracefully handle missing CellRef here in a similar way as XSSFCell does
            if(cellReference == null) {
                cellReference = new CellAddress(currentRow, currentCol).formatAsString();
            }

            // Did we miss any cells?
            int thisCol = (new CellReference(cellReference)).getCol();
            int missedCols = thisCol - currentCol - 1;
            for (int i=0; i<missedCols; i++) {
                output.append(',');
            }
            currentCol = thisCol;

            // Number or string?
            try {
                //noinspection ResultOfMethodCallIgnored
                Double.parseDouble(formattedValue);
                output.append(formattedValue);
            } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
                output.append('"');
                output.append(formattedValue);
                output.append('"');
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void headerFooter(String text, boolean isHeader, String tagName) {
            // Skip, no headers or footers in CSV
        }
    }


    ///////////////////////////////////////

    private final OPCPackage xlsxPackage;

    /**
     * Number of columns to read starting with leftmost
     */
    private final int minColumns;

    /**
     * Destination for data
     */
    private final PrintStream output;

    /**
     * Creates a new XLSX -> CSV converter
     *
     * @param pkg        The XLSX package to process
     * @param output     The PrintStream to output the CSV to
     * @param minColumns The minimum number of columns to output, or -1 for no minimum
     */
    public XLSX2CSV(OPCPackage pkg, PrintStream output, int minColumns) {
        this.xlsxPackage = pkg;
        this.output = output;
        this.minColumns = minColumns;
    }

    /**
     * Parses and shows the content of one sheet
     * using the specified styles and shared-strings tables.
     *
     * @param styles The table of styles that may be referenced by cells in the sheet
     * @param strings The table of strings that may be referenced by cells in the sheet
     * @param sheetInputStream The stream to read the sheet-data from.

     * @exception java.io.IOException An IO exception from the parser,
     *            possibly from a byte stream or character stream
     *            supplied by the application.
     * @throws SAXException if parsing the XML data fails.
     */
    public void processSheet(
            StylesTable styles,
            ReadOnlySharedStringsTable strings,
            SheetContentsHandler sheetHandler, 
            InputStream sheetInputStream) throws IOException, SAXException {
        DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter();
        InputSource sheetSource = new InputSource(sheetInputStream);
        try {
            XMLReader sheetParser = SAXHelper.newXMLReader();
            ContentHandler handler = new XSSFSheetXMLHandler(
                  styles, null, strings, sheetHandler, formatter, false);
            sheetParser.setContentHandler(handler);
            sheetParser.parse(sheetSource);
         } catch(ParserConfigurationException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException("SAX parser appears to be broken - " + e.getMessage());
         }
    }

    /**
     * Initiates the processing of the XLS workbook file to CSV.
     *
     * @throws IOException If reading the data from the package fails.
     * @throws SAXException if parsing the XML data fails.
     */
    public void process() throws IOException, OpenXML4JException, SAXException {
        ReadOnlySharedStringsTable strings = new ReadOnlySharedStringsTable(this.xlsxPackage);
        XSSFReader xssfReader = new XSSFReader(this.xlsxPackage);
        StylesTable styles = xssfReader.getStylesTable();
        XSSFReader.SheetIterator iter = (XSSFReader.SheetIterator) xssfReader.getSheetsData();
        int index = 0;
        while (iter.hasNext()) {
            InputStream stream = iter.next();
            String sheetName = iter.getSheetName();
            this.output.println();
            this.output.println(sheetName + " [index=" + index + "]:");
            processSheet(styles, strings, new SheetToCSV(), stream);
            stream.close();
            ++index;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        if (args.length < 1) {
            System.err.println("Use:");
            System.err.println("  XLSX2CSV <xlsx file> [min columns]");
            return;
        }

        File xlsxFile = new File(args[0]);
        if (!xlsxFile.exists()) {
            System.err.println("Not found or not a file: " + xlsxFile.getPath());
            return;
        }

        int minColumns = -1;
        if (args.length >= 2)
            minColumns = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);

        // The package open is instantaneous, as it should be.
        OPCPackage p = OPCPackage.open(xlsxFile.getPath(), PackageAccess.READ);
        XLSX2CSV xlsx2csv = new XLSX2CSV(p, System.out, minColumns);
        xlsx2csv.process();
        p.close();
    }
}

Input format Image - Click here to see the formatting for dates

Input:

date1        date2
1/1/1900    1/1/1900
2/28/2012   2/28/2012
3/15/1965   3/15/1965
1/1/2000    1/1/2000
1/1/2100    1/1/2100
1/1/2115    1/1/2115

Output:

date1        date2
1/1/2000    1/1/1900
2/28/2012   2/28/2012
3/15/1965   3/15/1965
1/1/2000    1/1/2000
1/1/2000    1/1/2100
1/1/2015    1/1/2115

If you look at the input data, cells (i.e. date1 column) is formatted with asterisk which is utilizing regional settings, cell with that format are getting affected as 1900 is converted as 2000 so is any data above 2099... If the Cell (i.e. Date2 Column) is formatted without * then value is coming out as expected. Is that a limitation with this utility or is there a workaround ?

If I format the cell the other way without applying regional settings format, I get the correct output.

Answer 1

Cannot reproducing that behavior using apache poi 3.15 final.

The code you have shown produces the following output:

Sheet1 [index=0]:
"date1","date2"
"1/1/00","1/1/1900"
"2/28/12","2/28/2012"
"3/15/65","3/15/1965"
"1/1/00","1/1/2000"
"1/1/00","1/1/2100"
"1/1/15","1/1/2115"

So for the default date format (format-id = 0xe = short date = *3/14/2012) m/d/yy is used. This is the one which is defined in BuiltinFormats.

Of course, if you put that output directly into a CSV file, then there is not a century present and Excel must guessing the century while opening this CSV file.

You could changing the code a little bit, like:

...
    public void processSheet(
            StylesTable styles,
            ReadOnlySharedStringsTable strings,
            SheetContentsHandler sheetHandler, 
            InputStream sheetInputStream) throws IOException, SAXException {
        DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter() {
            @Override
            public String formatRawCellContents(double value, int formatIndex, String formatString, boolean use1904Windowing) {
                if ("m/d/yy".equals(formatString)) formatString = "m/d/yyyy";
                return super.formatRawCellContents(value, formatIndex, formatString, use1904Windowing);
            }
        };
        InputSource sheetSource = new InputSource(sheetInputStream);
        try {
            XMLReader sheetParser = SAXHelper.newXMLReader();
            ContentHandler handler = new XSSFSheetXMLHandler(
                  styles, null, strings, sheetHandler, formatter, false);
            sheetParser.setContentHandler(handler);
            sheetParser.parse(sheetSource);
         } catch(ParserConfigurationException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException("SAX parser appears to be broken - " + e.getMessage());
         }
    }
...

This will produce the following output:

Sheet1 [index=0]:
"date1","date2"
"1/1/1900","1/1/1900"
"2/28/2012","2/28/2012"
"3/15/1965","3/15/1965"
"1/1/2000","1/1/2000"
"1/1/2100","1/1/2100"
"1/1/2115","1/1/2115"