CoreXLSX

Excel spreadsheet (XLSX) format parser written in pure Swift

CoreXLSX is a library focused on representing the low-level structure of XML-based XLSX spreadsheet format. It allows you to open a spreadsheet archive and map its XML structure into model types expressed directly in Swift.

Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory first.

Model types in CoreXLSX directly map internal structure of XLSX format with more sensible naming applied to a few attributes. The API is pretty simple:

import CoreXLSX

guard let file = XLSXFile(filepath: "./categories.xlsx") else {
  fatalError("XLSX file corrupted or does not exist")
}

for path in try file.parseWorksheetPaths() {
  let ws = try file.parseWorksheet(at: path)
  for row in ws.data?.rows ?? [] {
    for c in row.cells {
      print(c)
    }
  }
}

This prints every cell from every worksheet in the given XLSX file. Please refer to the Worksheet model for more atttributes you might need to read from a parsed file.

Shared strings

Some cells (usually with strings) have their values shared in a separate model type, which you can get by evaluating try file.parseSharedString(). You can refer to the SharedStrings model for the full list of its properties.

Here's how you can get all shared strings in column "C" for example:

let sharedStrings = try file.parseSharedStrings()
let columnCStrings = ws.cells(atColumns: [ColumnReference("C")!])
  // in format internals "s" stands for "shared",
  // if it is used, it means the value is an index of a shared string
  .filter { $0.type == "s" }
  // get the value of the cell
  .compactMap { $0.value }
  // convert the value to a number
  .compactMap { Int($0) }
  // use the number as an index in the array of shared strings
  .compactMap { sharedStrings.items[$0].text }

Styles

Since version 0.5.0 you can parse style information from the archive with the new parseStyles() function. Please refer to the Styles model for more details. You should also note that not all XLSX files contain style information, so you should be prepared to handle the errors thrown from parseStyles() function in that case.

Here's a short example that fetches a list of fonts used:

let styles = try file.parseStyles()
let fonts = styles.fonts?.items.compactMap { $0.name?.value }

Reporting compatibility issues

If you stumble upon a file that can't be parsed, please file an issue posting the exact error message. Thanks to use of standard Swift Codable protocol, detailed errors are generated listing a missing attribute, so it can be easily added to the model enabling broader format support. Attaching a file that can't be parsed would also greatly help in diagnosing issues. If these files contain any sensitive data, we suggest obfuscating or generating fake data with same tools that generated original files, assuming the issue can still be reproduced this way.

If the whole file can't be attached, try passing a sufficiently large value (between 10 and 20 usually works well) to errorContextLength argument of XLSXFile initializer. This will bundle the failing XML snippet with the debug description of thrown errors. Please also attach the full debug description if possible when reporting issues.

How does it work?

Since every XLSX file is a zip archive of XML files, CoreXLSX uses XMLCoder library and standard Codable protocols to map XML nodes and atrributes into plain Swift structs. ZIPFoundation is used for in-memory decompression of zip archives. A detailed description is available here.

Requirements

Apple Platforms

• Xcode 10.0 or later
• Swift 4.2 or later
• iOS 9.0 / watchOS 2.0 / tvOS 9.0 / macOS 10.11 or later deployment targets

Linux

• Ubuntu 14.04 or later
• Swift 5.0.1 or later

Installation

Swift Package Manager

Swift Package Manager is a tool for managing the distribution of Swift code. It’s integrated with the Swift build system to automate the process of downloading, compiling, and linking dependencies on all platforms.

Once you have your Swift package set up, adding CoreXLSX as a dependency is as easy as adding it to the dependencies value of your Package.swift.

dependencies: [
  .package(url: "https://github.com/MaxDesiatov/CoreXLSX.git",
           .upToNextMajor(from: "0.9.1"))
]

CocoaPods

CoreXLSX is available through CocoaPods on Apple's platforms. To install it, simply add pod 'CoreXLSX', '~> 0.9.1' to your Podfile like shown here:

source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
# Uncomment the next line to define a global platform for your project
# platform :ios, '9.0'
use_frameworks!
target '<Your Target Name>' do
  pod 'CoreXLSX', '~> 0.9.1'
end

Carthage

Carthage is a dependency manager that builds your dependencies and provides you with binary frameworks on Apple's platforms.

Carthage can be installed with Homebrew using the following command:

$ brew update
$ brew install carthage

Inside of your Cartfile, add GitHub path to CoreXLSX and its latest version:

github "MaxDesiatov/CoreXLSX" ~> 0.9.1

Then, run the following command to build the framework:

$ carthage update

Drag the built frameworks (including the subdependencies XMLCoder and ZIPFoundation) into your Xcode project.

Contributing

For development work and for running the tests in Xcode you need to run carthage bootstrap in the root directory of the cloned repository first. Then you can open the CoreXLSX.xcodeproj from the same directory and select the CoreXLSXmacOS scheme. This is the only scheme that has the tests set up, but you can also build any other scheme (e.g. CoreXLSXiOS) to make sure it builds on other platforms.

If you prefer not to work with Xcode, the project fully supports SwiftPM and the usual workflow with swift build and swift test should work, otherwise please report this as a bug.

Code of Conduct

This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code. Please report unacceptable behavior to corexlsx@desiatov.com.

Maintainers

Max Desiatov, Matvii Hodovaniuk

License

CoreXLSX is available under the Apache 2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for more info.