Read Excel with macros using Java POI

Question

Hi,
I'm very desperate... I have to do following things: read Excel file with macros. I can read xls without macros, but i haven't ideas what to do, so correctly read records with macros in xls.
I use following method to listen for incoming records and handles them as required.
public void processRecord(Record record)
switch (record.getSid())
// the BOFRecord can represent either the beginning of a sheet or the workbook
case BOFRecord.sid:
BOFRecord bof = (BOFRecord) record;
if (bof.getType() == bof.TYPE_WORKBOOK)
System.out.println("Encountered workbook");
// assigned to the class level member
} else if (bof.getType() == bof.TYPE_WORKSHEET)
System.out.println("Encountered sheet reference");
break;
case BoundSheetRecord.sid:
BoundSheetRecord bsr = (BoundSheetRecord) record;
System.out.println("New sheet named: " + bsr.getSheetname());
break;
case RowRecord.sid:
RowRecord rowrec = (RowRecord) record;
System.out.println("Row found, first column at "
+ rowrec.getFirstCol() + " last column at " + rowrec.getLastCol());
break;
case NumberRecord.sid:
NumberRecord numrec = (NumberRecord) record;
System.out.println("Cell found with value " + numrec.getValue()
+ " at row " + numrec.getRow() + " and column " + numrec.getColumn());
break;
// SSTRecords store a array of unique strings used in Excel.
case SSTRecord.sid:
sstrec = (SSTRecord) record;
for (int k = 0; k < sstrec.getNumUniqueStrings(); k++)
System.out.println("String table value " + k + " = " + sstrec.getString(k));
break;
case LabelSSTRecord.sid:
LabelSSTRecord lrec = (LabelSSTRecord) record;
System.out.println("String cell found with value "
+ sstrec.getString(lrec.getSSTIndex()));
break;
case FormulaRecord.sid:
FormulaRecord fre = (FormulaRecord) record;
System.out.println("Formula: "+ fre.getValue());
break;
I don't know, how check, that incoming record is joined with macro and I don't know how handle it.
Is there possible to create Excel file with macros using POI?
Please help me...
Margaret

Answer 1

I want to read the contents of an MS Excel file from
java, is it possible using JavaBeans-ActiveX bridge or
by any other java technologies, if possible, how ?Bridge2Java from IBM Alphaworks will do the trick for you.
You can get it from here:
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/aw.nsf/techs/bridge2java
Using it, you can do things like the following (taken and abbreviated from the samples provided with the package):
import Excel.*;
public class QuickExcel
    public static void main(java.lang.String[] args) {
        Application app;
        Workbooks wbs;
        Workbook wb;
        Worksheet sheet;
        Range rangeA1, rangeA2;
        try
            com.ibm.bridge2java.OleEnvironment.Initialize();
            app = new Application(); // Excel.Application !!! :-)
            app.set_Visible(true);
            wbs = app.get_Workbooks();
            wb = wbs.Add();
            sheet = new Worksheet(wb.get_ActiveSheet());
            rangeA1 = sheet.get_Range("A1");
            String out = new String("This is a test");
            rangeA1.set_Value(out);
            // Wait five seconds
            Thread.sleep(5000);
            // Close the workbook without saving
            wb.Close(new Boolean("false"));
            app.Quit();
        } catch (com.ibm.bridge2java.ComException e)
            System.out.println( "COM Exception:" );
            System.out.println( Long.toHexString((e.getHResult())) );
            System.out.println( e.getMessage() );
        } catch (Exception e)
            System.out.println("message: " + e.getMessage());
        } finally
            app = null;
            com.ibm.bridge2java.OleEnvironment.UnInitialize();
}