xls file format : Regarding what are the bare minimum records needed for an xls file

[Obi Van Kenobi <ge...@yahoo.com>]

Hi ,

I am a newbie trying to understand excel file format.
I have a clarification regarding what are the bare
minimum records which are needed in a excel file.
 
The documention contained in sc.openoffice.org
indicates that the following is the bare minimum. The
others are optional.

// workbook global
BOF
WINDOW1
FONT (1..N)
XF (1..N)
STYLE (1..N)
BOUNDSHEET (1..N)
EOF

// worksheet substream
BOF
DIMENSIONS
WINDOW2
EOF


But in Apache POI-HSSF if I create an *empty* excel
file and view through java BIFFViewer I can see many
more records than this . Yes, HSSF  may be writing
some default values for other records. But just to
clarify,  with the above minimum records is it
possible create a valid excel file ?

Thanks in Advance
ObiVan

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Re: xls file format : Regarding what are the bare minimum records needed for an xls file

[Glen Stampoultzis <gs...@iinet.net.au>]

It's pretty hard to tell what's the bear minimum because things like that 
just aren't documented.  To find out you'd have to start removing records 
and see if Excel will still open the spreadsheet.

Regards,

Glen

At 10:33 PM 22/02/2004, you wrote:
>Hi ,
>
>I am a newbie trying to understand excel file format.
>I have a clarification regarding what are the bare
>minimum records which are needed in a excel file.
>
>The documention contained in sc.openoffice.org
>indicates that the following is the bare minimum. The
>others are optional.
>
>// workbook global
>BOF
>WINDOW1
>FONT (1..N)
>XF (1..N)
>STYLE (1..N)
>BOUNDSHEET (1..N)
>EOF
>
>// worksheet substream
>BOF
>DIMENSIONS
>WINDOW2
>EOF
>
>
>But in Apache POI-HSSF if I create an *empty* excel
>file and view through java BIFFViewer I can see many
>more records than this . Yes, HSSF  may be writing
>some default values for other records. But just to
>clarify,  with the above minimum records is it
>possible create a valid excel file ?
>
>Thanks in Advance
>ObiVan
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
>http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: poi-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: poi-user-help@jakarta.apache.org


Glen Stampoultzis
gstamp@iinet.net.au
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gstamp/glen/