OleDB & mixed Excel datatypes : missing data

Question

I have an Excel worksheet I want to read into a datatable - all is well except for one particular column in my Excel sheet. The column, \'ProductID\', is a mix of values lik

Answer 1

No problem sh4, glad it helps w/ the mixed type issue.

The DateTime column is whole other animal that I recall caused me grief in the past... we have one excel file we process that the OleDbDataAdapter will sometimes convert dates to a double data type (apparently Excel stores dates as doubles, which encode the number of days elapsed since January 0, 1900 ).

The workaround was to use:

OleDbConnection mobjExcelConn = new OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + txtExcelFile.Text + @";Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;IMEX=1;HDR=Yes;""");

OleDbDataAdapter mobjExcelDataAdapter = new OleDbDataAdapter("Select * from [" + txtSheet.Text + "$] where [Supplier ID] <> '' ", mobjExcelConn);


DateTime dtShipStatus = DateTime.MinValue;
shipStatusOrig = excelRow["Est Ship Date"].ToString(); // excelRow is DataRow in the DataSet via the OleDbDataAdapter             

if (shipStatusOrig != string.Empty)
{
    // Date may be read in via oledb adapter as a double
    if (IsNumeric(shipStatusOrig))
    {
        double d = Convert.ToDouble(shipStatusOrig);
        dtShipStatus = DateTime.FromOADate(d);

        if (DateTime.TryParse(dtShipStatus.ToString(), out dtShipStatus))
        {
            validDate = true;
            Debug.WriteLine("{0} converted: ", dtShipStatus.ToString("s"));
        }
    }
    else
    {
        if (ValidateShipDate(shipStatusOrig))
        {
            dtShipStatus = DateTime.Parse(shipStatusOrig);
            validDate = true;
            Debug.WriteLine("{0} converted: ", dtShipStatus.ToString("s"));
        }
        else
        {
            validDate = false;
            MessageBox.Show("Invalid date format in the Excel spreadsheet.\nLine # " + progressBar1.Value + ", the 'Ship Status' value '" + shipStatusOrig + "' is invalid.\nDate should be in a valid date time format.\ne.g. M/DD/YY, M.D.Y, YYYY-MM-DD, etc.", "Invaid Ship Status Date");
        }
    }
...
}
        public static Boolean IsNumeric (Object Expression)
        {
            if(Expression == null || Expression is DateTime)
                return false;

            if(Expression is Int16 || Expression is Int32 || Expression is Int64 || Expression is Decimal || Expression is Single || Expression is Double || Expression is Boolean)
                return true;

            try
            {
                if(Expression is string)
                    Double.Parse(Expression as string);
                else
                   Double.Parse(Expression.ToString());
                return true;
            } catch {} // just dismiss errors but return false

            return false;
        }

        public bool ValidateShipDate(string shipStatus)
        {
            DateTime startDate;
            try
            {
                startDate = DateTime.Parse(shipStatus);
                return true;
            }
            catch
            {
                return false;
            }
        }