Using NPOI, how do I return a cell value as it has been formatted by Excel?

Samuel picture Samuel · Feb 25, 2015 · Viewed 10.3k times · Source

Using NPOI, is there any buildin possibility to format a cell value (especially numeric and date values) as it has been formatted by Excel?

If not what would be the best way to implement it? I thought of a formatstring converter from Excel-formatstrings to C#-formatstrings?

The following example assumes the Excel-formatstring and the C#-formatstring are the same. So it works for some basic formatstrings like: "#,##0.00"

using NPOI.SS.UserModel;

ICell cell = workbook.GetSheet("table1").GetRow(0).GetCell(0);
string value = null;

if(cell.CellType == CellType.String) {
    value = cell.StringCellValue;
} else if(cell.CellType == CellType.Numeric) {
    string formatString = cell.CellStyle.GetDataFormatString();

    if(DateUtil.IsCellDateFormatted(cell)) {
        value = cell.DateCellValue.ToString(formatString);
    } else {
        value = cell.NumericCellValue.ToString(formatString);
    }
} else [...]

Answer

Samuel picture Samuel · Feb 25, 2015

Found the NPOI built in possibility. However some formats like "Sunday, September 18, 1983" are evaluated like "EEEE, September 18, 1983".

using NPOI.SS.UserModel;

DataFormatter dataFormatter = new DataFormatter(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
ICell cell = workbook.GetSheet("table1").GetRow(0).GetCell(0);

string value = dataFormatter.FormatCellValue(cell);