[TIKA-1020] Excel 2010 parser missing cell values are not reported resulting in missing columns values

• Type: Bug
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.2
• Component/s: parser
• Labels: newbie patch

Environment

java 1.6 & 1.7

• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Neil Blue
• Created: 08/Nov/12 11:24
• Updated: 07/Mar/18 18:04

Description

When parting an excel 2010 table, if a worksheet has a missing value, then it is not reported in the sax handler. As a result a missing value can result in unordered data.

For example given the table:

Bar.java

A B B
1 2 3
4   6
7 8 9

the returned sax handler reports elements

Bar.java

<tr><td>A</td><td>B</td><td>C</td><tr>
<tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><tr>
<tr><td>4</td><td>6</td><tr>
<tr><td>7</td><td>8</td><td>9</td><tr>

As a result the handler can detect that the third row as incomplete cell values but it is ambiguous which columns have missing data.

As a possible fix for this excel 2010 xml data contains the cell reference value, which could be returned to the sax handler as an attribute.

Bar.java

*** XSSFExcelExtractorDecorator.java    2012-11-08 10:51:55.881207100 +0000
--- XSSFExcelExtractorDecorator.java.1  2012-11-08 10:59:02.972223700 +0000
***************
*** 200,206 ****
  
         public void cell(String cellRef, String formattedValue) {
            try {
!              xhtml.startElement("td");
  
               // Main cell contents
               xhtml.characters(formattedValue);
--- 200,208 ----
  
         public void cell(String cellRef, String formattedValue) {
            try {
!              AttributesImpl attributes = new AttributesImpl();
!              attributes.addAttribute(null, "cellRef", "cellRef", null, cellRef) ;
!              xhtml.startElement("td",attributes);
  
               // Main cell contents
               xhtml.characters(formattedValue);

Issue Links

• is related to: TIKA-2479 Handle empty cells in tables uniformly