string automatically converted in spring

Question

I'm working on a project in Spring using SpringMVC. I'm importing data from (.xls) files .

the problem is that:

• I'm reading this value "945854955" as a String but saved in DB as "9.45854955E8"

• this value "26929" saved as "26929.0"

• this value "21/05/1987" saved as "31918.0"

/read Code

    // import ...
    @RequestMapping(value="/read")
    public String Read(Model model,@RequestParam CommonsMultipartFile[] fileUpload)
    throws IOException, EncryptedDocumentException, InvalidFormatException {

    List<String> liste = new ArrayList();
    Employe employe = new Employe();
    String modelnom = null;

    liste = extraire(modelnom); //See the second code

    for (int m=0, i=29;i<liste.size();i=i+29) {
        if(i % 29 == 0) {
            m++;
        }
            employe.setNomEmploye(liste.get(29*m+1));
            //...
            employe.setDateNaissance((String)liste.get(29*m+8).toString());  // here i had the date problem
            employe.setDateEntree((String)liste.get(29*m+9).toString());     // here i had the date problem
            employe.setDateSortie((String)liste.get(29*m+10).toString());    // here i had the date problem
            // ...
            employe.setNumCpteBanc(liste.get(29*m+17)); // here i had the first & second case problem
            employe.setNumCIMR(liste.get(29*m+19));     // here i had the first & second case problem
            employe.setNumMUT(liste.get(29*m+20));      // here i had the first & second case problem
            employe.setNumCNSS(liste.get(29*m+21));     // here i had the first & second case problem

            boolean bool=true;
            List<Employe> employes = dbE.getAll();// liste des employes

            for (int n=0;n<employes.size();n++) {
                if (employes.get(n).getMatriculeMY() ==  (int)mat ) {
                    bool= false;
                }
            }
            if (bool) {

                dbE.create(employe);
            }
    }
     return "redirect";
    }

extraire code

private List<String> extraire (String nomFichier) throws IOException {
    List<String> liste = new ArrayList();
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(new File(nomFichier));
    HSSFWorkbook  workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(fis);
    HSSFSheet spreadsheet = workbook.getSheetAt(0);
    Iterator < Row > rowIterator = null;
// recup une ligne
    rowIterator = spreadsheet.iterator();
    while (rowIterator.hasNext()) {
        int i = 0;
        row =  (HSSFRow) rowIterator.next();
        Iterator < Cell > cellIterator = row.cellIterator();
        while ( cellIterator.hasNext()) {
            Cell cell = cellIterator.next();
            i++;
            /**
             * Pour verifier si une ligne est vide. (for verifing if the line is empty)
             */
            if (i % 29 == 0 || i == 1) {
                while ( cellIterator.hasNext() && cell.getCellType() == Cell.CELL_TYPE_BLANK) {
                    cell = cellIterator.next();
                }
            }

            switch (cell.getCellType()) {
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC:
                    String cellule = String.valueOf(cell.getNumericCellValue());
                    liste.add(cellule);
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
                    liste.add(cell.getStringCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_BLANK:
                     cellule = " ";
                             liste.add(cellule);
                             break;
            }
        }
    }
        fis.close();
        return liste;
}
}

Answer 1

Excel's tries to data type cells and sometimes when you explicitly specify the data type Excel may try and cast the cell. You can try to right click on the cell and select 'Format Cell', then select 'Text' as the type (Category). However, at parse time it may still get hosed up.

Your quickest solution might be to save the file as a CSV and use that. You can still edit it in Excel. Although you will need to do some validation to ensure Excel isn't trying to do the above conversions on CSV save as. There are a lot of good Java CSV parsers out there OpenCSV, Super CSV.

The most time consuming, but probably the most correct way, if you want to continue to use Excel, is build a middle ware layer that parses the row and correctly identifies and formats the cell values. Apache POI and HSSF & XSSF can be used. Be warned that to handle xls and xlsx requires two different sets of libraries and often enough abstraction to handle both. See https://poi.apache.org/spreadsheet/

As an Example:

protected String getCellValue(final Cell cell){
    if (null == cell) { return null; }
    // For Excel binaries 97 and below, The method of setting the cell type to CELL_TYPE_STRING converts the
    // Formatted to date to a short. To correct this we check that the cell type is numeric and the check that it is
    // date formatted. If we don't check that it is Numeric first an IllegalAccessorException is thrown.
    if(cell.getCellType() == Cell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC && isCellDateFormated(cell) {
        // isCellDateFormated is seperate util function to look at the cell value in order to determine if the date is formatted as a double.
        // is a date format.
        return // do date format procedure.
    }
    cell.setTypeCell(Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING);
    return cell.toString();
}

Hope this helps.

============Update==================

Instead of calling methods like "getNumericCellValue()" try setting the cell type to String and using toString like the example above. Here is my test code. Note the xls file has one row and 4 cells in csv: "abba,1,211,q123,11.22"

public void testExtract() throws Exception{
    InputStream is = new FileInputStream("/path/to/project/Test/src/test/java/excelTest.xls");
    HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook(is);
    HSSFSheet sheet = wb.getSheetAt(0);
    Iterator<Row> rowIter = sheet.iterator();
    while (rowIter.hasNext()){
        HSSFRow row = (HSSFRow) rowIter.next();
        Iterator<Cell> cellIter = row.cellIterator();
        while (cellIter.hasNext()){
            Cell cell = cellIter.next();
            System.out.println("Raw to string: " + cell.toString());

            // Check for data format here. If you set a date cell to string and to string the response the output is funky.
            cell.setCellType(Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING);
            System.out.println("Formatted to string: " + cell.toString());
        }
    }
    is.close();
}

Output is

Raw to string: abba
Formatted to string: abba
Raw to string: 1.0
Formatted to string: 1
Raw to string: 211.0
Formatted to string: 211
Raw to string: q1123
Formatted to string: q1123
Raw to string: 11.22
Formatted to string: 11.22