XLSX header change

[John Cunradi]

I have an app that imports an Excel XLSX file, updates a quantity, adds a few new records and then exports the result back out as an XLSX file.

My problem concerns the header in the file (column names)

When I import the XLSX file into A5, any column titles with a space are converted into field names with an underscore instead of the space.
Example: Product ID becomes Product_ID

For the export file, I need to have the original column titles rather than the field names that A5 converted them to. The resulting file is imported into my customers cash register system.

Short of having my customers manually change them from and underscore to a space, is there a way to have A5 do it?

Thanks.

[John Cunradi]

Re: XLSX header change

Until I can figure this out, my stopgap solution is a dialog telling the customer to change the underscores to spaces.
Not very elegant but it'll have to do for now.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XLSX header change

You can use the Alpha OLE methods to open the exported file and rename the column headers.

[richardurban]

Did you ever figure out a solution for this? I am having the same issue. I need column headers with blank spaces, not underscores.

[ddprlewis]

I don't know if he did, but here's a link for an example of opening a spreadsheet and manipluating it after the fact:
https://documentation.alphasoftware....preadsheet.xml

It uses the Office::ExcelDocument and Office::Spreadsheet objects to manipulate the spreadsheet after you saved it. It's pretty simple to do. I haven't done it in Alpha, but have used this methodology in many other languages. Was glad to see that they had this functionality.

[Mike Wilson]

Does the export file have to be XLSX? Can it not be CSV. With the data saved as CSV, it is simple to change the title formats. Can you introduce a temporary exchange table?

[CraigSchumacker]

The documentation may be confusing to some, so here's a simpler adaptation...

This is a very static solution. To make it more dynamic, you can use STRTRAN() between the read and write lines to use the existing headings replacing the underlines ( _ ) with a blank space.

'  CHANGE THIS LINE TO SET THE NAME OF THE SPREADSHEET WITH COLUMNS TO BE CHANGED

vcExcel_File = "c:\YOUR_EXCEL_SS_NAME.xlsx"

'  CHANGE THIS LINE TO SET THE WORKSHEET NAME YOU WANT TO ADDRESS WITHIN THE SPREADSHEET(Sheet1, Sheet2, etc)

vcSht_Name = "Sheet1"

' THESE 2 LINES DELETES VARIABLES, THEN SETS THEM IN THE 2 LINES THAT FOLLOW

delete Doc
delete Sheet

dim Doc as Office::ExcelDocument
dim Sheet as Office::Spreadsheet

'  THIS SECTION LOADS THE XLXS, FINDS THE WORKSHEET, READS WHAT IS IN THE TOP ROW FIRST FIVE CELLS, AND WRITES THE VALUES

if Doc.load(vcExcel_File)[INDENT]
if Doc.FindSheet(Sheet,vcSht_Name)[/INDENT][INDENT=2]
cellA1v = Sheet.Read(1,1)
Sheet.Write(1,1,"Ship To")
cellB1v = Sheet.Read(1,2)
Sheet.Write(1,2,"Invoice Date")
cellC1v = Sheet.Read(1,3)
Sheet.Write(1,3,"Item Description")
cellD1v = Sheet.Read(1,4)
Sheet.Write(1,4,"Price")
cellE1v = Sheet.Read(1,5)
Sheet.Write(1,5,"Invoice")

Doc.save(vcExcel_File)[/INDENT][INDENT]
end if

[/INDENT][INDENT]' THIS NEXT LINE, IF UN-REMMED, SHOWS THE VALUES IN THE CELLS YOU REPLACED

' ui_msg_box("Previous Cell Headings",cellA1v + crlf() + cellB1v + crlf() + cellC1v + crlf() + cellD1v)[/INDENT]
 
end if

[ddprlewis]

The built in Excel coding doesn't allow for that, but you can call the COM object and have total control. This requires Excel to be installed on the server whereas the built in does not.

To create an object to Excel, you can use the following commands

dim Excel as P
Excel = ole.getobject("", "Excel.Application")
dim Sheet as P
Sheet = Excel.ActiveSheet
'
'
'Close Excel
Excel.Quit()
delete Sheet
delete Excel

To open an existing file, use
Excel.Workbooks.Open("filepathandname")

To Save, use
Excel.ActiveWorkBook.SaveAS('filepathandname', filetype)

The SaveAs takes 2 parameters, one of which is the type (CSV is included in these. It is a number. I don't have it readily available, but you can lookup any of these online easily.

All of the methods and properties are easily available online with plenty of examples. So, this provides complete control over the Excel file including the type of file.

Downside is that it requires Office to be installed on the server. Upside is that you have total control over all aspects of Excel.

[gkeramidas]

whenever i have to do something like this, i typically save the export to a temporary excel file.
then i create a master excel workbook with the code i need to run and manipulate any data in the temporary file, format it, create a table, or whatever. sometimes i put the code in a workbooks_open module so it runs as soon as the file is open. sometimes i use a button and have the use click the button in the "master" to open the temporary file, manipulate the data and then save it as a new name, copy it to 3rd workbook, and then close the master and delete the temporary file.

so the alpha code would export and save the temp file and then open the master file that does the work. i started doing this because v11 manipulation of spreadsheets did not work. was fixed in v12, but i have a lot more control of what i can do,

a basic example is a query that downloads thousands of rows or rebate data from and ibm iseries into a spreadsheet. then my master spreadsheet opens this workbook, breaks the data out by customer into a new workbo0ok, creates a table, creates a pivot table, formats columns of data, put totals on some columns and emails it to the specific customer. there are hundreds of customers.

if you're interested in more specific info for your situation, let me know.