You can use a library called ExcelLibrary. It's a free, open source library posted on Google Code:
ExcelLibrary
This looks to be a port of the PHP ExcelWriter that you mentioned above. It will not write to the new .xlsx format yet, but they are working on adding that functionality in.
It's very simple, small and easy to use. Plus it has a DataSetHelper that lets you use DataSets and DataTables to easily work with Excel data.
ExcelLibrary seems to still only work for the older Excel format (.xls files), but may be adding support in the future for newer 2007/2010 formats.
You can also use EPPlus, which works only for Excel 2007/2010 format files (.xlsx files). There's also NPOI which works with both.
There are a few known bugs with each library as noted in the comments. In all, EPPlus seems to be the best choice as time goes on. It seems to be more actively updated and documented as well.
Also, as noted by @АртёмЦарионов below, EPPlus has support for Pivot Tables and ExcelLibrary may have some support (Pivot table issue in ExcelLibrary)
Here are a couple links for quick reference:
ExcelLibrary - GNU Lesser GPL
EPPlus - GNU (LGPL) - No longer maintained
EPPlus 5 - Polyform Noncommercial - Starting May 2020
NPOI - Apache License
Here some example code for ExcelLibrary:
Here is an example taking data from a database and creating a workbook from it. Note that the ExcelLibrary code is the single line at the bottom:
//Create the data set and table
DataSet ds = new DataSet("New_DataSet");
DataTable dt = new DataTable("New_DataTable");
//Set the locale for each
ds.Locale = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
dt.Locale = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
//Open a DB connection (in this example with OleDB)
OleDbConnection con = new OleDbConnection(dbConnectionString);
con.Open();
//Create a query and fill the data table with the data from the DB
string sql = "SELECT Whatever FROM MyDBTable;";
OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand(sql, con);
OleDbDataAdapter adptr = new OleDbDataAdapter();
adptr.SelectCommand = cmd;
adptr.Fill(dt);
con.Close();
//Add the table to the data set
ds.Tables.Add(dt);
//Here's the easy part. Create the Excel worksheet from the data set
ExcelLibrary.DataSetHelper.CreateWorkbook("MyExcelFile.xls", ds);
Creating the Excel file is as easy as that. You can also manually create Excel files, but the above functionality is what really impressed me.
I've been experimenting with the various methods .NET provide for URL encoding. Perhaps the following table will be useful (as output from a test app I wrote):
Unencoded UrlEncoded UrlEncodedUnicode UrlPathEncoded EscapedDataString EscapedUriString HtmlEncoded HtmlAttributeEncoded HexEscaped
A A A A A A A A %41
B B B B B B B B %42
a a a a a a a a %61
b b b b b b b b %62
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 %30
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 %31
[space] + + %20 %20 %20 [space] [space] %20
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! %21
" %22 %22 " %22 %22 " " %22
# %23 %23 # %23 # # # %23
$ %24 %24 $ %24 $ $ $ %24
% %25 %25 % %25 %25 % % %25
& %26 %26 & %26 & & & %26
' %27 %27 ' ' ' ' ' %27
( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( %28
) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) %29
* * * * %2A * * * %2A
+ %2b %2b + %2B + + + %2B
, %2c %2c , %2C , , , %2C
- - - - - - - - %2D
. . . . . . . . %2E
/ %2f %2f / %2F / / / %2F
: %3a %3a : %3A : : : %3A
; %3b %3b ; %3B ; ; ; %3B
< %3c %3c < %3C %3C < < %3C
= %3d %3d = %3D = = = %3D
> %3e %3e > %3E %3E > > %3E
? %3f %3f ? %3F ? ? ? %3F
@ %40 %40 @ %40 @ @ @ %40
[ %5b %5b [ %5B %5B [ [ %5B
\ %5c %5c \ %5C %5C \ \ %5C
] %5d %5d ] %5D %5D ] ] %5D
^ %5e %5e ^ %5E %5E ^ ^ %5E
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ %5F
` %60 %60 ` %60 %60 ` ` %60
{ %7b %7b { %7B %7B { { %7B
| %7c %7c | %7C %7C | | %7C
} %7d %7d } %7D %7D } } %7D
~ %7e %7e ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ %7E
Ā %c4%80 %u0100 %c4%80 %C4%80 %C4%80 Ā Ā [OoR]
ā %c4%81 %u0101 %c4%81 %C4%81 %C4%81 ā ā [OoR]
Ē %c4%92 %u0112 %c4%92 %C4%92 %C4%92 Ē Ē [OoR]
ē %c4%93 %u0113 %c4%93 %C4%93 %C4%93 ē ē [OoR]
Ī %c4%aa %u012a %c4%aa %C4%AA %C4%AA Ī Ī [OoR]
ī %c4%ab %u012b %c4%ab %C4%AB %C4%AB ī ī [OoR]
Ō %c5%8c %u014c %c5%8c %C5%8C %C5%8C Ō Ō [OoR]
ō %c5%8d %u014d %c5%8d %C5%8D %C5%8D ō ō [OoR]
Ū %c5%aa %u016a %c5%aa %C5%AA %C5%AA Ū Ū [OoR]
ū %c5%ab %u016b %c5%ab %C5%AB %C5%AB ū ū [OoR]
The columns represent encodings as follows:
UrlEncoded: HttpUtility.UrlEncode
UrlEncodedUnicode: HttpUtility.UrlEncodeUnicode
UrlPathEncoded: HttpUtility.UrlPathEncode
EscapedDataString: Uri.EscapeDataString
EscapedUriString: Uri.EscapeUriString
HtmlEncoded: HttpUtility.HtmlEncode
HtmlAttributeEncoded: HttpUtility.HtmlAttributeEncode
HexEscaped: Uri.HexEscape
NOTES:
HexEscape
can only handle the first 255 characters. Therefore it throws an ArgumentOutOfRange
exception for the Latin A-Extended characters (eg Ā).
This table was generated in .NET 4.0 (see Levi Botelho's comment below that says the encoding in .NET 4.5 is slightly different).
EDIT:
I've added a second table with the encodings for .NET 4.5. See this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21771206/216440
EDIT 2:
Since people seem to appreciate these tables, I thought you might like the source code that generates the table, so you can play around yourselves. It's a simple C# console application, which can target either .NET 4.0 or 4.5:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
// Need to add a Reference to the System.Web assembly.
using System.Web;
namespace UriEncodingDEMO2
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
EncodeStrings();
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue...");
Console.Read();
}
public static void EncodeStrings()
{
string stringToEncode = "ABCD" + "abcd"
+ "0123" + " !\"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\\]^_`{|}~" + "ĀāĒēĪīŌōŪū";
// Need to set the console encoding to display non-ASCII characters correctly (eg the
// Latin A-Extended characters such as ĀāĒē...).
Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
// Will also need to set the console font (in the console Properties dialog) to a font
// that displays the extended character set correctly.
// The following fonts all display the extended characters correctly:
// Consolas
// DejaVu Sana Mono
// Lucida Console
// Also, in the console Properties, set the Screen Buffer Size and the Window Size
// Width properties to at least 140 characters, to display the full width of the
// table that is generated.
Dictionary<string, Func<string, string>> columnDetails =
new Dictionary<string, Func<string, string>>();
columnDetails.Add("Unencoded", (unencodedString => unencodedString));
columnDetails.Add("UrlEncoded",
(unencodedString => HttpUtility.UrlEncode(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("UrlEncodedUnicode",
(unencodedString => HttpUtility.UrlEncodeUnicode(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("UrlPathEncoded",
(unencodedString => HttpUtility.UrlPathEncode(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("EscapedDataString",
(unencodedString => Uri.EscapeDataString(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("EscapedUriString",
(unencodedString => Uri.EscapeUriString(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("HtmlEncoded",
(unencodedString => HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("HtmlAttributeEncoded",
(unencodedString => HttpUtility.HtmlAttributeEncode(unencodedString)));
columnDetails.Add("HexEscaped",
(unencodedString
=>
{
// Uri.HexEscape can only handle the first 255 characters so for the
// Latin A-Extended characters, such as A, it will throw an
// ArgumentOutOfRange exception.
try
{
return Uri.HexEscape(unencodedString.ToCharArray()[0]);
}
catch
{
return "[OoR]";
}
}));
char[] charactersToEncode = stringToEncode.ToCharArray();
string[] stringCharactersToEncode = Array.ConvertAll<char, string>(charactersToEncode,
(character => character.ToString()));
DisplayCharacterTable<string>(stringCharactersToEncode, columnDetails);
}
private static void DisplayCharacterTable<TUnencoded>(TUnencoded[] unencodedArray,
Dictionary<string, Func<TUnencoded, string>> mappings)
{
foreach (string key in mappings.Keys)
{
Console.Write(key.Replace(" ", "[space]") + " ");
}
Console.WriteLine();
foreach (TUnencoded unencodedObject in unencodedArray)
{
string stringCharToEncode = unencodedObject.ToString();
foreach (string columnHeader in mappings.Keys)
{
int columnWidth = columnHeader.Length + 1;
Func<TUnencoded, string> encoder = mappings[columnHeader];
string encodedString = encoder(unencodedObject);
// ASSUMPTION: Column header will always be wider than encoded string.
Console.Write(encodedString.Replace(" ", "[space]").PadRight(columnWidth));
}
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
}
}
Click here to run code on dotnetfiddle.net
Best Answer
You'll want to look at accessing SharePoint through its Web Services. Specifically, the Lists Web Service and the Views Web Service. Here's the Lists.AddList method from the lists service - should get you going down the right path.