read excel file in VB.NET with autofilter

Question

I have an Excel spreadsheet with about 80000 rows, The users apply autofilter to the sheet and load it in the VB.NET application. Is there a way I can read only filtered rows using ADO.NET ?. I do not want to use Excel Interop because not all users have MS Office installed. The Application is designed to Read only XLSX files.

Thanks in anticipation

Answer 1

with ODBC or OLEDB dataProvider's with sql query. example:

Dim connection = New OdbcConnection("Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls, *.xlsx, *.xlsm, *.xlsb)};DBQ=C:\MyExcel.xlsx;")
Dim com As New OdbcCommand("SELECT * FROM [SheetName$] WHERE ID > 5", connection)

connection.Open()

Dim reader = com.ExecuteReader()
While reader.Read()
    'get data 
    Console.WriteLine("{0}  {1}", reader(0), reader(1))
End While

connection.Close()

Another way: linq-to-excel . I have not used it yet.

Answer 2

for filter According the AutoFilter, you need read the AutoFilter from the File, and generate sql expression. I write you a structure code to read AutoFilter using OpenXml library:

 Dim SheetName = "SheetName"
 Dim fileFullName As String = "C:\MyExcel.xlsx"
 Dim SqlFilterExpression As String

 Using xslDoc As SpreadsheetDocument = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(fileFullName, False)
     Dim theSheet As Sheet = xslDoc.WorkbookPart.Workbook.Sheets.FirstOrDefault(Function(SheetEl) CType(SheetEl, Sheet).Name = SheetName)
     Dim WorkSheetPart As WorksheetPart = xslDoc.WorkbookPart.GetPartById(theSheet.Id)

     Dim Filter = WorkSheetPart.Worksheet.Elements(Of AutoFilter).First

     If Not IsNothing(Filter) Then
         For Each FilterPerColumn In Filter.Elements(Of FilterColumn)()

             Dim CustomFilters = FilterPerColumn.Elements(Of CustomFilters).FirstOrDefault
             If Not IsNothing(CustomFilters) Then


                 Dim filters = CustomFilters.Elements(Of CustomFilter)()

                 'check if filter contient tow condition
                 If filters.Count = 1 Then
                     Select Case CType(filters(0).Operator, FilterOperatorValues)
                         Case FilterOperatorValues.LessThan
                             '...Ect.
                     End Select

                 Else
                     'check if condition joined by or/and
                     If CustomFilters.And Then
                         'and joined
                     Else
                         'or joined
                     End If
                 End If

             End If
         Next
     End If
 End Using

Because after all XML is a serial-access file, its very possible that reading all file by OpenXml will take the same time.