Setting Values |
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Methods for Assigning Cell Values
Cell values can be assigned,- Programmatically, on a cell-by-cell basis with data that has been parsed from a CSV file or an XML file
- By iterating through an ADO Recordset and assigning field values to cells on a row-by-row basis
- By importing a recordset in a single step with CopyFromRecordset or GetDataFromRecordset*
- By importing a recordset in a single step using ExcelTemplate
- By copying data from an existing Excel file into the newly created Excel sheet using GetDataFromExcelSheet*
- By opening* an existing Excel file, and saving it with a new name
ExcelWriter allows you to format these imported cell values as virtually any data type that are supported by Excel. This includes currency, date/time, numeric data types such as integer or floating point number, strings, text, etc. Casting (or changing cell values from one data type to another) can be accomplished by means of the server-side scripting functions (i.e. VBScript's CStr() or CINT() functions).
* This feature is not available in ExcelWriterSE, ExcelWriterLE, and ExcelWriterFree.
Example 1: Data Types
Microsoft Excel supports many different types of data in a cell: integer and floating point numbers, text, date/time, currency. The following example shows a broad range of different data types.
You'll note that the formatting is independent of the value. This example purposefully does not set formatting - it illustrates that you may need to set formatting depending on the type of data such as dates or currency.
Example2: Changing from One Type to Another
The previous example showed how to enter values with default interpretation by ExcelWriter. It is also possible to explicitly convert one type into another - a process known as casting.
Section Summary
- It is simple to set cell values using ExcelWriter defaults.
- Using casting, ExcelWriter defaults can be overridden.
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