Cannot get a text value from a numeric cell “Poi”

Question

I\'m trying to consume data from a spreadsheet in Excel, but always of this error, already tried formatting the worksheet to text and number and still the error persists.

Answer 1

If you are processing in rows with cellIterator....then this worked for me ....

  DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter();   
  while(cellIterator.hasNext())
  {                         
        cell = cellIterator.next();
        String val = "";            
        switch(cell.getCellType()) 
        {
            case Cell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC:
                val = String.valueOf(formatter.formatCellValue(cell));
                break;
            case Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
                val = formatter.formatCellValue(cell);
                break;
        }
    .....
    .....
  }

Answer 2

Use that code it definitely works and I modified it.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import org.apache.poi.poifs.filesystem.POIFSFileSystem;
//import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.*;

public class TestApp {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        try {

            Class forName = Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
            Connection con = null;
            con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/tables", "root", "root");
            con.setAutoCommit(false);
            PreparedStatement pstm = null;
            FileInputStream input = new FileInputStream("C:\\Users\\Desktop\\a1.xls");
            POIFSFileSystem fs = new POIFSFileSystem(input);
            Workbook workbook;
            workbook = WorkbookFactory.create(fs);
            Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheetAt(0);
            Row row;
            for (int i = 1; i <= sheet.getLastRowNum(); i++) {
                row = (Row) sheet.getRow(i);
                String name = row.getCell(0).getStringCellValue();
                String add = row.getCell(1).getStringCellValue();

                int  contact = (int) row.getCell(2).getNumericCellValue();

                String email = row.getCell(3).getStringCellValue();

                String sql = "INSERT INTO employee (name, address, contactNo, email) VALUES('" + name + "','" + add + "'," + contact + ",'" + email + "')";
                pstm = (PreparedStatement) con.prepareStatement(sql);
                pstm.execute();
                System.out.println("Import rows " + i);
            }
            con.commit();
            pstm.close();
            con.close();
            input.close();
            System.out.println("Success import excel to mysql table");
        } catch (IOException e) {
        }
    }

}

Answer 3

    Cell cell = sheet.getRow(i).getCell(0);
    cell.setCellType ( Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING );
    String j_username = cell.getStringCellValue();

UPDATE

Ok, as have been said in comments, despite this works it isn't correct method of retrieving data from an Excel's cell.

According to the manual here:

If what you want to do is get a String value for your numeric cell, stop!. This is not the way to do it. Instead, for fetching the string value of a numeric or boolean or date cell, use DataFormatter instead.

And according to the DataFormatter API

DataFormatter contains methods for formatting the value stored in an Cell. This can be useful for reports and GUI presentations when you need to display data exactly as it appears in Excel. Supported formats include currency, SSN, percentages, decimals, dates, phone numbers, zip codes, etc.

So, right way to show numeric cell's value is as following:

 DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter(); //creating formatter using the default locale
 Cell cell = sheet.getRow(i).getCell(0);
 String j_username = formatter.formatCellValue(cell); //Returns the formatted value of a cell as a String regardless of the cell type.

Answer 4

As explained in the Apache POI Javadocs, you should not use cell.setCellType(Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING) to get the string value of a numeric cell, as you'll loose all the formatting

Instead, as the javadocs explain, you should use DataFormatter

What DataFormatter does is take the floating point value representing the cell is stored in the file, along with the formatting rules applied to it, and returns you a string that look like it the cell does in Excel.

So, if you're after a String of the cell, looking much as you had it looking in Excel, just do:

 // Create a formatter, do this once
 DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter(Locale.US);

 .....

 for (int i=1; i <= sheet.getLastRowNum(); i++) {
        Row r = sheet.getRow(i);
        if (r == null) { 
           // empty row, skip
        } else {
           String j_username = formatter.formatCellValue(row.getCell(0));
           String j_password =  formatter.formatCellValue(row.getCell(1));

           // Use these
        }
 }

The formatter will return String cells as-is, and for Numeric cells will apply the formatting rules on the style to the number of the cell

Answer 5

CellType cell = row.getCell(j).getCellTypeEnum();

switch(cell) {
    case NUMERIC:
        intVal = row.getCell(j).getNumericCellValue();
        System.out.print(intVal);
        break;
    case STRING:
        stringVal = row.getCell(j).getStringCellValue();
        System.out.print(stringVal);
        break;
}

Answer 6

public class B3PassingExcelDataBase {


    @Test()
    //Import the data::row start at 3 and column at 1: 
    public static void imortingData () throws IOException {

        FileInputStream  file=new         FileInputStream("/Users/Downloads/Book2.xlsx");
        XSSFWorkbook book=new XSSFWorkbook(file);
        XSSFSheet sheet=book.getSheet("Sheet1");

        int rowNum=sheet.getLastRowNum();
        System.out.println(rowNum);

        //get the row and value and assigned to variable to use in application
        for (int r=3;r<rowNum;r++) {

            // Rows stays same but column num changes and this is for only one person. It iterate for other.
             XSSFRow currentRow=sheet.getRow(r);

             String fName=currentRow.getCell(1).toString();
             String lName=currentRow.getCell(2).toString();
             String phone=currentRow.getCell(3).toString();
             String email=currentRow.getCell(4).toString()

               //passing the data
                yogen.findElement(By.name("firstName")).sendKeys(fName);    ;
                yogen.findElement(By.name("lastName")).sendKeys(lName); ;
                yogen.findElement(By.name("phone")).sendKeys(phone);    ;

        }

        yogen.close();


    }

}