How to Read/Write Data from Excel File: Selenium POI
Krishna Rungta
File IO is a critical part of any software process. We frequently create a file, open it & update something or delete it in our Computers. Same is the case with Selenium Automation. We need a process to manipulate files with Selenium.
Java provides us different classes for File Manipulation with Selenium. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how can we read and write on Excel file with the help of Java IO package and Apache POI library.
Apache POI in Selenium
The Apache POI in Selenium is a widely used API for selenium data driven testing. It is a POI library written in Java that gives users an API for manipulating Microsoft documents like .xls and .xlsx. Users can easily create, modify and read/write into excel files. POI stands for “Poor Obfuscation Implementation.”
Exporting Excel
How to handle excel file using POI (Maven POM Dependency)
To Read and Write Excel file in Java, Apache provides a very famous library POI. This library is capable enough to read and write both XLS and XLSX file format of Excel.
To read XLS files, an HSSF implementation is provided by POI library.
To read XLSX, XSSF implementation of POI library will be the choice. Let’s study these implementations in detail.
If you are using Maven in your project, the Maven dependency will be
<dependency> <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId> <artifactId>poi</artifactId> <version>4.1.1</version> </dependency>
Or you can simply download the latest version POI jars from http://poi.apache.org/download.html & download the latest zip file
When you download the zip file for this jar, you need to unzip it and add these all jars to the class path of your project.
Classes and Interfaces in POI
Following is a list of different Java Interfaces and classes in POI for reading XLS and XLSX file-
- Workbook: XSSFWorkbook and HSSFWorkbook classes implement this interface.
- XSSFWorkbook: Is a class representation of XLSX file.
- HSSFWorkbook: Is a class representation of XLS file.
- Sheet: XSSFSheet and HSSFSheet classes implement this interface.
- XSSFSheet: Is a class representing a sheet in an XLSX file.
- HSSFSheet: Is a class representing a sheet in an XLS file.
- Row: XSSFRow and HSSFRow classes implement this interface.
- XSSFRow: Is a class representing a row in the sheet of XLSX file.
- HSSFRow: Is a class representing a row in the sheet of XLS file.
- Cell: XSSFCell and HSSFCell classes implement this interface.
- XSSFCell: Is a class representing a cell in a row of XLSX file.
- HSSFCell: Is a class representing a cell in a row of XLS file.
Read/Write operation
For our example, we will consider below given Excel file format
Read data from Excel file
Complete Example: Here we are trying to read data from Excel in Selenium:
package excelExportAndFileIO;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook;
public class ReadGuru99ExcelFile {
public void readExcel(String filePath,String fileName,String sheetName) throws IOException{
//Create an object of File class to open xlsx file
File file = new File(filePath+"\\"+fileName);
//Create an object of FileInputStream class to read excel file
FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(file);
Workbook guru99Workbook = null;
//Find the file extension by splitting file name in substring and getting only extension name
String fileExtensionName = fileName.substring(fileName.indexOf("."));
//Check condition if the file is xlsx file
if(fileExtensionName.equals(".xlsx")){
//If it is xlsx file then create object of XSSFWorkbook class
guru99Workbook = new XSSFWorkbook(inputStream);
}
//Check condition if the file is xls file
else if(fileExtensionName.equals(".xls")){
//If it is xls file then create object of HSSFWorkbook class
guru99Workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(inputStream);
}
//Read sheet inside the workbook by its name
Sheet guru99Sheet = guru99Workbook.getSheet(sheetName);
//Find number of rows in excel file
int rowCount = guru99Sheet.getLastRowNum()-guru99Sheet.getFirstRowNum();
//Create a loop over all the rows of excel file to read it
for (int i = 0; i < rowCount+1; i++) {
Row row = guru99Sheet.getRow(i);
//Create a loop to print cell values in a row
for (int j = 0; j < row.getLastCellNum(); j++) {
//Print Excel data in console
System.out.print(row.getCell(j).getStringCellValue()+"|| ");
}
System.out.println();
}
}
//Main function is calling readExcel function to read data from excel file
public static void main(String...strings) throws IOException{
//Create an object of ReadGuru99ExcelFile class
ReadGuru99ExcelFile objExcelFile = new ReadGuru99ExcelFile();
//Prepare the path of excel file
String filePath = System.getProperty("user.dir")+"\\src\\excelExportAndFileIO";
//Call read file method of the class to read data
objExcelFile.readExcel(filePath,"ExportExcel.xlsx","ExcelGuru99Demo");
}
}
Note: We are not using the Testng framework here. Run the class as Java Application using function read excel in Selenium as shown in above example.
Write data on Excel file
Complete Example: Here we are trying to write data from Excel file by adding new row in Excel file
package excelExportAndFileIO;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Cell;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook;
public class WriteGuru99ExcelFile {
public void writeExcel(String filePath,String fileName,String sheetName,String[] dataToWrite) throws IOException{
//Create an object of File class to open xlsx file
File file = new File(filePath+"\\"+fileName);
//Create an object of FileInputStream class to read excel file
FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(file);
Workbook guru99Workbook = null;
//Find the file extension by splitting file name in substring and getting only extension name
String fileExtensionName = fileName.substring(fileName.indexOf("."));
//Check condition if the file is xlsx file
if(fileExtensionName.equals(".xlsx")){
//If it is xlsx file then create object of XSSFWorkbook class
guru99Workbook = new XSSFWorkbook(inputStream);
}
//Check condition if the file is xls file
else if(fileExtensionName.equals(".xls")){
//If it is xls file then create object of XSSFWorkbook class
guru99Workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(inputStream);
}
//Read excel sheet by sheet name
Sheet sheet = guru99Workbook.getSheet(sheetName);
//Get the current count of rows in excel file
int rowCount = sheet.getLastRowNum()-sheet.getFirstRowNum();
//Get the first row from the sheet
Row row = sheet.getRow(0);
//Create a new row and append it at last of sheet
Row newRow = sheet.createRow(rowCount+1);
//Create a loop over the cell of newly created Row
for(int j = 0; j < row.getLastCellNum(); j++){
//Fill data in row
Cell cell = newRow.createCell(j);
cell.setCellValue(dataToWrite[j]);
}
//Close input stream
inputStream.close();
//Create an object of FileOutputStream class to create write data in excel file
FileOutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream(file);
//write data in the excel file
guru99Workbook.write(outputStream);
//close output stream
outputStream.close();
}
public static void main(String...strings) throws IOException{
//Create an array with the data in the same order in which you expect to be filled in excel file
String[] valueToWrite = {"Mr. E","Noida"};
//Create an object of current class
WriteGuru99ExcelFile objExcelFile = new WriteGuru99ExcelFile();
//Write the file using file name, sheet name and the data to be filled
objExcelFile.writeExcel(System.getProperty("user.dir")+"\\src\\excelExportAndFileIO","ExportExcel.xlsx","ExcelGuru99Demo",valueToWrite);
}
}
Excel Manipulation using JXL API
JXL is also another famous jar to read Excel file in Java and writing files. Nowadays, POI is used in most of the projects, but before POI, JXL was only Java API for Excel manipulation. It is a very small and simple API for excel reading in Selenium.
TIPS: My suggestion is not to use JXL in any new project because the library is not in active development from 2010 and lack of the feature in compare to POI API.
Download JXL:
If you want to work with JXL, you can download it from this link
https://sourceforge.net/projects/jexcelapi/files/jexcelapi/2.6.12/
You can also get demo example inside this zipped file for JXL.
Some of the features:
- JXL is able to read Excel file in Selenium for 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003 workbook.
- We can work with English, French, Spanish, German.
- Copying a Chart and image insertion in Excel is possible
Drawback:
- We can write Excel 97 and later only (writing in Excel 95 is not supported).
- JXL does not support XLSX format of excel file.
- It Generates spreadsheet in Excel 2000 format.
Summary
- Excel file can be read by Java IO operation. For that, we need to use Apache POI Jar.
- There are two kinds of a workbook in Excel file, XLSX and XLS files.
- POI has different Interfaces Workbook, Sheet, Row, Cell.
- These interfaces are implemented by corresponding XLS (HSSFWorkbook, HSSFSheet, HSSFRow, HSSFCell) and XLSX (XSSFWorkbook, XSSFSheet, XSSFRow, XSSFCell) file manipulation classes.
- JXL is another API for Excel handling in Selenium.
- JXL cannot work with XLSX format of excel.
