C# OPEN XML: empty cells are getting skipped while getting data from EXCEL to DATATABLE

Question

Task

Import data from excel to DataTable

Problem

The cell that doesnot contain any data are getting skipped and the very next cell that has data in the row is used as the value of the empty colum. E.g

A1 is empty A2 has a value Tom then while importing the data A1 get the value of A2 and A2 remains empty

To make it very clear I am providing some screen shots below

This is the excel data

This is the DataTable after importing the data from excel

Code

public class ImportExcelOpenXml
{
    public static DataTable Fill_dataTable(string fileName)
    {
        DataTable dt = new DataTable();

        using (SpreadsheetDocument spreadSheetDocument = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(fileName, false))
        {

            WorkbookPart workbookPart = spreadSheetDocument.WorkbookPart;
            IEnumerable<Sheet> sheets = spreadSheetDocument.WorkbookPart.Workbook.GetFirstChild<Sheets>().Elements<Sheet>();
            string relationshipId = sheets.First().Id.Value;
            WorksheetPart worksheetPart = (WorksheetPart)spreadSheetDocument.WorkbookPart.GetPartById(relationshipId);
            Worksheet workSheet = worksheetPart.Worksheet;
            SheetData sheetData = workSheet.GetFirstChild<SheetData>();
            IEnumerable<Row> rows = sheetData.Descendants<Row>();

            foreach (Cell cell in rows.ElementAt(0))
            {
                dt.Columns.Add(GetCellValue(spreadSheetDocument, cell));
            }

            foreach (Row row in rows) //this will also include your header row...
            {
                DataRow tempRow = dt.NewRow();

                for (int i = 0; i < row.Descendants<Cell>().Count(); i++)
                {
                    tempRow[i] = GetCellValue(spreadSheetDocument, row.Descendants<Cell>().ElementAt(i));
                }

                dt.Rows.Add(tempRow);
            }

        }

        dt.Rows.RemoveAt(0); //...so i'm taking it out here.

        return dt;
    }


    public static string GetCellValue(SpreadsheetDocument document, Cell cell)
    {
        SharedStringTablePart stringTablePart = document.WorkbookPart.SharedStringTablePart;
        string value = cell.CellValue.InnerXml;

        if (cell.DataType != null && cell.DataType.Value == CellValues.SharedString)
        {
            return stringTablePart.SharedStringTable.ChildElements[Int32.Parse(value)].InnerText;
        }
        else
        {
            return value;
        }
    }
}

My Thoughts

I think there is some problem with

public IEnumerable<T> Descendants<T>() where T : OpenXmlElement;

In case I want the count of columns using Descendants

IEnumerable<Row> rows = sheetData.Descendants<<Row>();
int colCnt = rows.ElementAt(0).Count();

OR

If I am getting the count of rows using Descendants

IEnumerable<Row> rows = sheetData.Descendants<<Row>();
int rowCnt = rows.Count();`

In both cases Descendants is skipping the empty cells

Is there any alternative of Descendants.

Your suggestions are highly appreciated

P.S: I have also thought of getting the cells values by using column names like A1, A2 but in order to do that I will have to get the exact count of columns and rows which is not possible by using Descendants function.

Answer 1

Had there been data in all the cells of a row then everything works good. The moment you have even a single empty cell in a row then things go haywire.

Why it is happening in first place?

This is because in the below code:

row.Descendants<Cell>().Count()

The Count() is the number of non-empty populated cells (not all columns). So, when you pass row.Descendants<Cell>().ElementAt(i) as an argument to GetCellValue method:

GetCellValue(spreadSheetDocument, row.Descendants<Cell>().ElementAt(i));

Then it will find the content of the next non-empty populated cell (not necessarily what is in that column index, i) e.g. if the first column is empty and we call ElementAt(1), it returns the value in the second column instead and the whole logic gets messed up.

Solution - We need to deal with the occurrence of empty cells: Essentially we need to figure out the original column index of the cell in case there were empty cells before it. So, you need to substitute your for loop code as below:

for (int i = 0; i < row.Descendants<Cell>().Count(); i++)
{
      tempRow[i] = GetCellValue(spreadSheetDocument, row.Descendants<Cell>().ElementAt(i));
}

with

for (int i = 0; i < row.Descendants<Cell>().Count(); i++)
{
    Cell cell = row.Descendants<Cell>().ElementAt(i);
    int actualCellIndex = CellReferenceToIndex(cell);
    tempRow[actualCellIndex] = GetCellValue(spreadSheetDocument, cell);
}

and add below method in your code which is used in the above modified code snippet to obtain the original/correct column index of any cell:

private static int CellReferenceToIndex(Cell cell)
{
    int index = 0;
    string reference = cell.CellReference.ToString().ToUpper();
    foreach (char ch in reference)
    {
        if (Char.IsLetter(ch))
        {
            int value = (int)ch - (int)'A';
            index = (index == 0) ? value : ((index + 1) * 26) + value;
        }
        else
        {
            return index;
        }
    }
    return index;
}