Export to Excel (as a REAL excel file)

Question

I've been exporting data to excel for ages now, so I know the
drill - build the data as an HTML table or MSOFFICE XML,set the
<cfcontent type="application/vnd.ms-excel"> and then output
the result. At the moment, I am trying to generate an excel file to
import into another application (Microsoft MapPoint, to be exact).
The problem seems to be that MapPoint won't recognize the
generated file as being an excel file. My guess is its because the
file is not an excel file, per se, but a format that excel
recognizes and can convert into a spreadsheet. If I load the
CF-generated file into excel and then save as a new file, then the
new file imports just fine into MapPoint. So my question is this:
Does anyone know of a way to export data from ColdFusion as a
real XLS file? I have some experience working with Jakarta POI, so
I'm thinking that's where this fun little journey is going to wind
up. But I thought I'd send it out there and see if anyone in the
community has any better suggestions.
thanks a lot, all!

Answer 1

quote:
Originally posted by:
insuractive
It would go something like this:
<cfscript>
// Create Color object (to reference static properties)
objColor = CreateObject("Java",
"org.apache.poi.hssf.util.HSSFColor");
// assuming wb workbook object has already been created
objStyle = wb.createCellStyle();
objStyle.setFillBackgroundColor(objColor.AQUA.index);
objStyle.setFillPattern(objStyle.BIG_SPOTS);
// assuming row object has already been created
objCell= row.createCell(JavaCast("int",1));
objCell.setCellValue("X");
objCell.setCellStyle(objStyle);
</cfscript>
The colors AQUA and ORANGE are special cases. If you check
the API, you'll see they are inner (or nested) classes.
http://poi.apache.org/apidocs/org/apache/poi/hssf/util/HSSFColor.html
So you cannot just instantiate the outer class and refer to
them as objColor.AQUA and objColor.ORANGE. You need a special
syntax to create an instance of the nested class. Though
technically I suppose its not truly instantiated but that's another
question :)
Instead of ...
<cfscript>
objColor = CreateObject("Java",
"org.apache.poi.hssf.util.HSSFColor");
// assuming wb workbook object has already been created
objStyle = wb.createCellStyle();
objStyle.setFillBackgroundColor(objColor.AQUA.index);
</cfscript>
You'll need to use:
<cfscript>
aqua = CreateObject("Java",
"org.apache.poi.hssf.util.HSSFColor$AQUA");
objStyle = wb.createCellStyle();
objStyle.setFillBackgroundColor(aqua.index);
</cfscript>
... OR
<cfscript>
aquaIndex = CreateObject("Java",
"org.apache.poi.hssf.util.HSSFColor$AQUA").index;
objStyle = wb.createCellStyle();
objStyle.setFillBackgroundColor(aquaIndex);
</cfscript>