Sorting and auto filtering Excel with openpyxl

Question

I am trying to sort a spreadsheet using openpyxl and Python. I have read the documents and I don't quite understand this page. I am expecting it to either add the auto filter dropdown arrows or sort my spreadsheet and it is returning errors. Here's my code

wb = openpyxl.load_workbook('report.xlsx')
ws = wb.active
ws['A2'] = "Store"
ws['B2'] = "Manager"
ws['C2'] = "Zone"
ws.column_dimensions.group('F','DU',hidden=True)
#ws.AutoFilter.add_sort_condition('C:C')
wb.save("report.xlsx")

According to the documents it looks like the line "ws.AutoFilter.add_sort_condition('C:C')" should give me the result I want. (Yes I understand it is currently a comment line. The rest of my code runs fine without that line so I commented it.)

When I have that line in the code I get the error - 'Worksheet' object has no attribute 'AutoFilter' but according to the documents it looks like it does. http://openpyxl.readthedocs.org/en/latest/_modules/openpyxl/worksheet/filters.html#AutoFilter .

If anyone can help explain to me why it is failing or what the documents mean that would be great.

This statement in the documents is particularly confusing to me:

"Don't create auto filters by yourself. It is created by :class: ~openpyxl.worksheet.Worksheet . You can use via :attr: ~~openpyxl.worksheet.Worksheet.auto_filter attribute."

because I tried that too and it also failed.

Update: @crussell's reply worked in that it added the auto filter to my spreadsheet. However, it is still not adding the sort condition to the appropriate column.

Answer 1

See here: http://openpyxl.readthedocs.org/en/latest/api/openpyxl.worksheet.html?highlight=auto_filter#openpyxl.worksheet.worksheet.Worksheet.auto_filter

The auto_filter command returns the AutoFilter object, so in a sense they are the same thing.

What you need is ws.auto_filter.ref = 'C1:C20' with the range of cells those of which you want to filter.

Answer 2

According to the documentation openpyxl can define the filter and/or sort but does not apply them!

They can only be applied from within Excel

Answer 3

I don't have a full answer for this, but I did find something interesting when using filters. I added a filter column, eg: ws.auto_filter.add_filter_column(1,{},True)

then I opened the resulting spreadsheet. The column showed the filter! But the data was not actually filtered in the spreadsheet. I had to click on the "Data" tab and click "Reapply" the filter.

So it looks like the adding of a sort or filter column works, except it never actually applies the sort or filter.

I have been hunting down a function that will apply the filter, but have not yet had any luck. If anyone has thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks!

Answer 4

After looking at the documentation and the source code for the AutoFilter.add_sort_condition() function it looks like the ref you're providing may need to be changed to include row indices, like "C1:C120", for example. Have you tried it with specific row numbers? Also, be sure to take a look at the comment regarding the ref variable right below the function declaration in:

http://openpyxl.readthedocs.org/en/latest/_modules/openpyxl/worksheet/filters.html#AutoFilter

if you're not following where I'm coming from. Cheers and good luck!