Get actual cell value of excel cell with POI without defining a datatype

Question

I catch my cells from an .xls file like this:

cell.getStringCellValue();

But since some of the cells are numeric, I have to do this instead:

Answer 1

You can use Apache POI DataFormatter's formatCellValue(Cell cell) method as it returns the formatted value of a cell as a String regardless of the cell type.

According to DataFormatter doc -

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.

Sample code

DataFormatter dataFormatter= new DataFormatter();

// Inside loop
String cellValueStr = dataFormatter.formatCellValue(cell);

Answer 2

try using cell.getCellType() as you have

1. numeric
2. date
3. numeric in scientific notation