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Distinguish Excel Dates from Numbers - Using Apache POI

807605Jul 5 2007 — edited Jul 5 2007
EDIT: I know this is a common issue, I have read plenty of people reporting the problem, but I have not found a acceptable answer. -- Please help.

O.K. so I have a little class that reads an excel table, and writes the cell values to XML.

The program has always worked great, and even handles the different cell types; boolean, string, formula, numbers.

Problem is dates. Date cells are treated equal to number cells, but I need to distinguish their format type. Right now I read them all as numbers, but I need to change this, because dates occur like 35356(days since jan 01 01).

I tried some basic formating checks;
System.out.println("Date Debug:");
								System.out.println(".isValidExcelDate: "+HSSFDateUtil.isValidExcelDate(currentRow.getCell((short) (useColumn)).getNumericCellValue()));
								System.out.println(".isCellDateFormatted: " +HSSFDateUtil.isCellDateFormatted(currentRow.getCell((short) (useColumn) )));
								System.out.println(".isInternalDateFormat: "+HSSFDateUtil.isInternalDateFormat((int) (currentRow.getCell((short) (useColumn)).getNumericCellValue() )));
//	
But they return true false false for any number..riddiculus!

Anyway, as it will work now, I'll just read the columns header for a 'date' in the the title. I am anxiously seeking better ideas, please suggest.

Thanks so much!

Notes:

*before and after are not acceptable, because i will have values above 39000 for numbers and dates as low as 1971.

* some reason i can't just read the value as it is displayed in excel ('2007-08-28') which is what I'd prefer. (If you think i can, please let me know how)

*please ask any questions to clarify my situation to resolve :-)

Message was edited by:
Masterkeedu

Acknowledged commonality
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Locked on Aug 2 2007
Added on Jul 5 2007
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