Export a list of LINQ objects to Excel file

Question

From a web application, is there a simple way to export a list of LINQ objects to an Excel file? Are there any good libraries that can do this?

Answer 1

This is the Excel Export I ended up with based on the link to the VB video above. It takes any List of Objects (It excludes navigation properties and collections on Entity Framework objects) and exports them to Excel. It exports about 35K records in ~4 seconds.

public void ExportToExcel(List list)
    {
        int columnCount = 0;

        DateTime StartTime = DateTime.Now;

        StringBuilder rowData = new StringBuilder();

        PropertyInfo[] properties = typeof(T).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);

        rowData.Append("");
        foreach (PropertyInfo p in properties)
        {
            if (p.PropertyType.Name != "EntityCollection`1" && p.PropertyType.Name != "EntityReference`1" && p.PropertyType.Name != p.Name)
            {
                columnCount++;
                rowData.Append("" + p.Name + "");
            }
            else
                break;

        }
        rowData.Append("");

        foreach (T item in list)
        {                
            rowData.Append("");
            for (int x = 0; x < columnCount; x++) //each (PropertyInfo p in properties)
            {                    
                object o = properties[x].GetValue(item, null);
                string value = o == null ? "" : o.ToString();                    
                rowData.Append("" + value + "");

            }
            rowData.Append("");
        }

        var sheet = @"
                    
                    
                        
                            MSADMIN
                            MSADMIN
                            2011-07-12T23:40:11Z
                            Microsoft
                            12.00
                        
                        
                            6600
                            12255
                            0
                            60
                            False
                            False
                        
                        
                            
                            
                        
                        
                            
                                " + rowData.ToString() +@"
                            
                            
                                
                                    

                                    

                                    
                                
                                
                                    
                                    300
                                    300
                                
                                
                                
                                    
                                        3
                                        2
                                    
                                
                                False
                                False
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                
                                    

                                    

                                    
                                
                                False
                                False
                            
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                
                                    

                                    

                                    
                                
                                False
                                False
                            
                        
                    ";

        System.Diagnostics.Debug.Print(StartTime.ToString() + " - " + DateTime.Now);
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.Print((DateTime.Now - StartTime).ToString());

        string attachment = "attachment; filename=Report.xml";
        HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearContent();
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", attachment);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(sheet);
        HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/ms-excel";
        HttpContext.Current.Response.End();

    }