Any idea why I'm getting the error "Column number must be between 1 and 16384"?

Question

What my code is trying to accomplish is copying all the cells from one worksheet into another. It is the simple block

// find the index of the first empty row and column in the dumped file
int m = 1; while ( !wb.Worksheet(3).Cell(m,1).IsEmpty() ) ++m; 
int n = 1; while ( !wb.Worksheet(3).Cell(1,n).IsEmpty() ) ++n;
// copy from dumped file into raw data file
for (int i = 1; i < m; ++i )
{
    for (int j = 1; i < n; ++j)
    {
        wb.Worksheet(1).Cell(i,j).Value = wb.Worksheet(3).Cell(i,j).Value;
    }
}

and somehow this is throwing the error

Column number must be between 1 and 16384

Any idea why that could be? I don't see any infinite loops or anything like that.

@poke This is a web app, so it's hard to log values. Also, as a test, I set `n=4` and `m=4` and got the same error. Strange. — Subpar Web Dev, Mar 26 '16 at 01:19
You could write the value into some specific cell. Anyway, do you get any more information which line throws that error? — poke, Mar 26 '16 at 01:21

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 26 '16 at 01:33

3

There are two things going on with this line of code.

for (int j = 1; i < n; ++j)

There is no limit on j; it will just just keep increasing while i < n. It should probably be:
for (int j = 1; j < n; ++j)
This is most likely unrelated but ++j increments before j is used. Use j++ to increment after j is used. Your code could be written as
for (int j = 2; j < n; j++)
I'm not sure if you want the first iteration to start with j as 1 or 2.

answered Mar 26 '16 at 01:33

Whoops ... type-o :( – Subpar Web Dev Mar 26 '16 at 01:39
re: *type-o* In the actual code or just in the question...? – Mar 26 '16 at 01:42
In my code. I'm going to give you best answer for supplying a pair of eyes when mine were failing. – Subpar Web Dev Mar 26 '16 at 01:46
Wow, good catch on the condition there. Note that `++j` or `j++` doesn’t matter in this case as it will be executed as a separate statement after the loop body. – poke Mar 26 '16 at 14:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 26 '16 at 01:40

It looks like you're looping until you find an empty row or column. If it doesn't find one (seems unlikely) then it's definitely going to go past the boundaries.

What are you using? Is it interop? You could check for Worksheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count and Worksheet.UsedRange.Columns.Count. Depending on what you're trying to do you could possibly just copy and paste Worksheet.UsedRange instead of copying the values one cell at a time.

Any idea why I'm getting the error "Column number must be between 1 and 16384"?

2 Answers2