xls

Parser for Excel XLS (BIFF5/BIFF8) and 2003-2004 (XML) files. Pure-JS cleanroom implementation from the Microsoft Open Specifications and related documents.

Installation

In nodejs:

npm install xlsjs

In the browser:

<script src="xls.js"></script>

In bower:

bower install js-xls

CDNjs automatically pulls the latest version and makes all versions available at http://cdnjs.com/libraries/xls

Optional Modules

The nodejs version automatically requires modules for additional features. Some of these modules are rather large in size and are only needed in special circumstances, so they do not ship with the core. For browser use, they must be included directly:

<!-- international support from https://github.com/sheetjs/js-codepage -->
<script src="dist/cpexcel.js"></script>

An appropriate version for each dependency is included in the dist/ directory.

The complete single-file version is generated at dist/xls.full.min.js

ECMAScript 5 compatibility

Since xls.js uses ES5 functions like Array#forEach, older browsers require Polyfills. This repo and the gh-pages branch include a shim

To use the shim, add the shim before the script tag that loads xls.js:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/shim.js"></script>

Parsing Workbooks

For parsing, the first step is to read the file.

• nodejs:

if(typeof require !== 'undefined') XLS = require('xlsjs');
var workbook = XLS.readFile('test.xls');
/* DO SOMETHING WITH workbook HERE */

• ajax:

/* set up XMLHttpRequest */
var url = "test_files/formula_stress_test_ajax.xls";
var oReq = new XMLHttpRequest();
oReq.open("GET", url, true);
oReq.responseType = "arraybuffer";

oReq.onload = function(e) {
  var arraybuffer = oReq.response;

  /* convert data to binary string */
  var data = new Uint8Array(arraybuffer);
  var arr = new Array();
  for(var i = 0; i != data.length; ++i) arr[i] = String.fromCharCode(data[i]);
  var bstr = arr.join("");

  /* Call XLS */
  var workbook = XLS.read(bstr, {type:"binary"});

  /* DO SOMETHING WITH workbook HERE */
}

oReq.send();

• html5 drag-and-drop using readAsBinaryString:

/* set up drag-and-drop event */
function handleDrop(e) {
  e.stopPropagation();
  e.preventDefault();
  var files = e.dataTransfer.files;
  var i,f;
  for (i = 0, f = files[i]; i != files.length; ++i) {
    var reader = new FileReader();
    var name = f.name;
    reader.onload = function(e) {
      var data = e.target.result;

      /* if binary string, read with type 'binary' */
      var wb = XLS.read(data, {type: 'binary'});

      /* DO SOMETHING WITH workbook HERE */
    };
    reader.readAsBinaryString(f);
  }
}
drop_dom_element.addEventListener('drop', handleDrop, false);

This example gets the value of cell A1 of the first worksheet:

var sheet_name_list = workbook.SheetNames;
var Sheet1A1 = workbook.Sheets[sheet_name_list[0]]['A1'].v;

Complete examples:

• http://oss.sheetjs.com/js-xls/ HTML5 File API / Base64 Text / Web Workers

Note that older versions of IE does not support HTML5 File API, so the base64 mode is provided for testing. On OSX you can get the base64 encoding with:

$ <target_file.xls base64 | pbcopy

• http://oss.sheetjs.com/js-xls/ajax.html XMLHttpRequest

• https://github.com/SheetJS/js-xls/blob/master/bin/xls.njs nodejs

The nodejs version installs a binary xls which can read XLS and XML2003 files and output the contents in various formats. The source is available at xls.njs in the bin directory.

Some helper functions in XLS.utils generate different views of the sheets:

• XLS.utils.sheet_to_csv generates CSV
• XLS.utils.sheet_to_json generates an array of objects
• XLS.utils.get_formulae generates a list of formulae

Interface

XLS is the exposed variable in the browser and the exported nodejs variable

XLS.read(data, read_opts) attempts to parse data.

XLS.readFile(filename, read_opts) attempts to read filename and parse.

Cell Object Description

js-xls conforms to the Common Spreadsheet Format (CSF):

.SheetNames is an ordered list of the sheets in the workbook

.Sheets[sheetname] returns a data structure representing the sheet. Each key that does not start with ! corresponds to a cell (using A-1 notation).

.Sheets[sheetname][address] returns the specified cell:

• .v : the raw value of the cell
• .w : the formatted text of the cell (if applicable)
• .t : the type of the cell (constrained to the enumeration ST_CellType as documented in page 4215 of ISO/IEC 29500-1:2012(E) )
• .f : the formula of the cell (if applicable)
• .z : the number format string associated with the cell (if requested)

For dates, .v holds the raw date code from the sheet and .w holds the text

Parsing Options

The exported read and readFile functions accept an options argument:

Option Name	Default	Description
cellFormula	true	Save formulae to the .f field **
cellNF	false	Save number format string to the .z field
sheetRows	0	If >0, read the first sheetRows rows **
bookFiles	false	If true, add raw files to book object **
bookProps	false	If true, only parse enough to get book metadata **
bookSheets	false	If true, only parse enough to get the sheet names
password	""	If defined and file is encrypted, use password **

• cellFormula only applies to constructing XLS formulae. XLML R1C1 formulae are stored in plaintext, but XLS formulae are stored in a binary format.
• Even if cellNF is false, formatted text (.w) will be generated
• In some cases, sheets may be parsed even if bookSheets is false.
• bookSheets and bookProps combine to give both sets of information
• bookFiles adds a cfb object (XLS only)
• sheetRows-1 rows will be generated when looking at the JSON object output (since the header row is counted as a row when parsing the data)
• Currently only XOR encryption is supported. Unsupported error will be thrown for files employing other encryption methods.

Tested Environments

• NodeJS 0.8, 0.10 (latest release), 0.11 (unstable)
• IE 6/7/8/9/10/11 using Base64 mode (IE10/11 using HTML5 mode)
• FF 18 using Base64 or HTML5 mode
• Chrome 24 using Base64 or HTML5 mode

Tests utilize the mocha testing framework. Travis-CI and Sauce Labs links:

• https://travis-ci.org/SheetJS/js-xls for XLS module in node
• https://travis-ci.org/SheetJS/SheetJS.github.io for XLS* modules
• https://saucelabs.com/u/sheetjs for XLS* modules using Sauce Labs

Test Files

Test files are housed in another repo.

Running make init will refresh the test_files submodule and get the files.

Testing

make test will run the nodejs-based tests. To run the in-browser tests, clone the oss.sheetjs.com repo and replace the xls.js file (then fire up the browser and go to stress.html):

$ cp xls.js ../SheetJS.github.io
$ cd ../SheetJS.github.io
$ simplehttpserver # or "python -mSimpleHTTPServer" or "serve"
$ open -a Chromium.app http://localhost:8000/stress.html

For a much smaller test, run make test_misc.

Other Notes

CFB refers to the Microsoft Compound File Binary Format, a container format for XLS as well as DOC and other pre-OOXML data formats.

The mechanism is split into a CFB parser (which scans through the file and produces concrete data chunks) and a Workbook parser (which does excel-specific parsing). XML files are not processed by the CFB parser.

Contributing

Due to the precarious nature of the Open Specifications Promise, it is very important to ensure code is cleanroom. Consult CONTRIBUTING.md

XLSX/XLSM/XLSB Support

XLSX/XLSM/XLSB is available in js-xlsx.

License

Please consult the attached LICENSE file for details. All rights not explicitly granted by the Apache 2.0 license are reserved by the Original Author.

It is the opinion of the Original Author that this code conforms to the terms of the Microsoft Open Specifications Promise, falling under the same terms as OpenOffice (which is governed by the Apache License v2). Given the vagaries of the promise, the Original Author makes no legal claim that in fact end users are protected from future actions. It is highly recommended that, for commercial uses, you consult a lawyer before proceeding.

References

Certain features are shared with the Office Open XML File Formats, covered in:

ISO/IEC 29500:2012(E) "Information technology — Document description and processing languages — Office Open XML File Formats"

OSP-covered specifications:

• [MS-CFB]: Compound File Binary File Format
• [MS-XLS]: Excel Binary File Format (.xls) Structure Specification
• [MS-XLSB]: Excel (.xlsb) Binary File Format
• [MS-XLSX]: Excel (.xlsx) Extensions to the Office Open XML SpreadsheetML File Format
• [MS-ODATA]: Open Data Protocol (OData)
• [MS-OFFCRYPTO]: Office Document Cryptography Structure
• [MS-OLEDS]: Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Data Structures
• [MS-OLEPS]: Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Property Set Data Structures
• [MS-OSHARED]: Office Common Data Types and Objects Structures
• [MS-OVBA]: Office VBA File Format Structure
• [MS-OE376]: Office Implementation Information for ECMA-376 Standards Support
• [MS-CTXLS]: Excel Custom Toolbar Binary File Format
• [MS-XLDM]: Spreadsheet Data Model File Format
• [XLS]: Microsoft Office Excel 97-2007 Binary File Format Specification

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