Java – Removing a row from an Excel sheet with Apache POI HSSF

The class you're looking for in POI is DataFormatter

When Excel writes the file, some cells are stored as literal Strings, while others are stored as numbers. For the latter, a floating point value representing the cell is stored in the file, so when you ask POI for the value of the cell that's what it actually has.

Sometimes though, especially when doing Text Extraction (but not always), you want to make the cell value look like it does in Excel. It isn't always possible to get that exactly in a String (non full space padding for example), but the DataFormatter class will get you close.

If you're after a String of the cell, looking much as you had it looking in Excel, just do:

 // Create a formatter, do this once
 DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter(Locale.US);

 .....

 for(Cell cell : row) {
     CellReference ref = new CellReference(cell);
     // eg "The value of B12 is 12.4%"
     System.out.println("The value of " + ref.formatAsString() + " is " + formatter.formatCellValue(cell));
 }

The formatter will return String cells as-is, and for Numeric cells will apply the formatting rules on the style to the number of the cell

Helper function to copy rows shamelessly adapted from here

import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.*;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Cell;
import org.apache.poi.ss.util.CellRangeAddress;

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;

public class RowCopy {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
        HSSFWorkbook workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(new FileInputStream("c:/input.xls"));
        HSSFSheet sheet = workbook.getSheet("Sheet1");
        copyRow(workbook, sheet, 0, 1);
        FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("c:/output.xls");
        workbook.write(out);
        out.close();
    }

    private static void copyRow(HSSFWorkbook workbook, HSSFSheet worksheet, int sourceRowNum, int destinationRowNum) {
        // Get the source / new row
        HSSFRow newRow = worksheet.getRow(destinationRowNum);
        HSSFRow sourceRow = worksheet.getRow(sourceRowNum);

        // If the row exist in destination, push down all rows by 1 else create a new row
        if (newRow != null) {
            worksheet.shiftRows(destinationRowNum, worksheet.getLastRowNum(), 1);
        } else {
            newRow = worksheet.createRow(destinationRowNum);
        }

        // Loop through source columns to add to new row
        for (int i = 0; i < sourceRow.getLastCellNum(); i++) {
            // Grab a copy of the old/new cell
            HSSFCell oldCell = sourceRow.getCell(i);
            HSSFCell newCell = newRow.createCell(i);

            // If the old cell is null jump to next cell
            if (oldCell == null) {
                newCell = null;
                continue;
            }

            // Copy style from old cell and apply to new cell
            HSSFCellStyle newCellStyle = workbook.createCellStyle();
            newCellStyle.cloneStyleFrom(oldCell.getCellStyle());
            ;
            newCell.setCellStyle(newCellStyle);

            // If there is a cell comment, copy
            if (oldCell.getCellComment() != null) {
                newCell.setCellComment(oldCell.getCellComment());
            }

            // If there is a cell hyperlink, copy
            if (oldCell.getHyperlink() != null) {
                newCell.setHyperlink(oldCell.getHyperlink());
            }

            // Set the cell data type
            newCell.setCellType(oldCell.getCellType());

            // Set the cell data value
            switch (oldCell.getCellType()) {
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_BLANK:
                    newCell.setCellValue(oldCell.getStringCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_BOOLEAN:
                    newCell.setCellValue(oldCell.getBooleanCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_ERROR:
                    newCell.setCellErrorValue(oldCell.getErrorCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_FORMULA:
                    newCell.setCellFormula(oldCell.getCellFormula());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC:
                    newCell.setCellValue(oldCell.getNumericCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
                    newCell.setCellValue(oldCell.getRichStringCellValue());
                    break;
            }
        }

        // If there are are any merged regions in the source row, copy to new row
        for (int i = 0; i < worksheet.getNumMergedRegions(); i++) {
            CellRangeAddress cellRangeAddress = worksheet.getMergedRegion(i);
            if (cellRangeAddress.getFirstRow() == sourceRow.getRowNum()) {
                CellRangeAddress newCellRangeAddress = new CellRangeAddress(newRow.getRowNum(),
                        (newRow.getRowNum() +
                                (cellRangeAddress.getLastRow() - cellRangeAddress.getFirstRow()
                                        )),
                        cellRangeAddress.getFirstColumn(),
                        cellRangeAddress.getLastColumn());
                worksheet.addMergedRegion(newCellRangeAddress);
            }
        }
    }
}