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Tutorial 3: Writing different types of data to the XLSX File

In the previous section we created a simple spreadsheet with formatting using Lua and the xlsxwriter module.

This time let's extend the data we want to write to include some dates:

 expenses = {
   {"Rent", "2013-01-13", 1000},
   {"Gas",  "2013-01-14",  100},
   {"Food", "2013-01-16",  300},
   {"Gym",  "2013-01-20",   50},
 }

The corresponding spreadsheet will look like this:

The differences here are that we have added a Date column with formatting and made that column a little wider to accommodate the dates.

To do this we can extend our program as follows:

html

(The significant changes are shown with a red line.)

local Workbook = require "xlsxwriter.workbook"


-- Create a workbook and add a worksheet.
local workbook  = Workbook:new("Expensese03.xlsx")
local worksheet = workbook:add_worksheet()

-- Add a bold format to use to highlight cells.
local bold = workbook:add_format({bold = true})

-- Add a number format for cells with money.
local money = workbook:add_format({num_format = "$#,##0"})

-- Add an Excel date format.
local date_format = workbook:add_format({num_format = "mmmm d yyyy"})

-- Adjust the column width.
worksheet:set_column("B:B", 15)

-- Write some data header.
worksheet:write("A1", "Item", bold)
worksheet:write("B1", "Date", bold)
worksheet:write("C1", "Cost", bold)

-- Some data we want to write to the worksheet.
local expenses = {
  {"Rent", "2013-01-13", 1000},
  {"Gas",  "2013-01-14",  100},
  {"Food", "2013-01-16",  300},
  {"Gym",  "2013-01-20",   50},
}

-- Start from the first cell below the headers.
local row = 1
local col = 0

-- Iterate over the data and write it out element by element.
for _, expense in ipairs(expenses) do
  local item, date, cost = unpack(expense)

  worksheet:write_string     (row, col,     item)
  worksheet:write_date_string(row, col + 1, date, date_format)
  worksheet:write_number     (row, col + 2, cost, money)
  row = row + 1
end

-- Write a total using a formula.
worksheet:write(row, 0, "Total",       bold)
worksheet:write(row, 2, "=SUM(C2:C5)", money)

workbook:close()

The main difference between this and the previous program is that we have added a new Format <Format> object for dates and we have additional handling for data types.

Excel treats different types of input data, such as strings and numbers, differently although it generally does it transparently to the user. Xlsxwriter tries to emulate this in the worksheet: <Worksheet>write() method by mapping Lua data types to types that Excel supports.

The write() method acts as a general alias for several more specific methods:

  • write_string()
  • write_number()
  • write_blank()
  • write_formula()
  • write_boolean()

In this version of our program we have used some of these explicit write_ methods for different types of data:

 worksheet:write_string     (row, col,     item)
 worksheet:write_date_string(row, col + 1, date, date_format)
 worksheet:write_number     (row, col + 2, cost, money)

This is mainly to show that if you need more control over the type of data you write to a worksheet you can use the appropriate method. In this simplified example the write() method would actually have worked just as well.

The handling of dates is also new to our program.

Dates and times in Excel are floating point numbers that have a number format applied to display them in the correct format. Since there is no native Lua date or time types xlsxwriter provides the write_date_string() and write_date_time() methods to convert dates and times into Excel date and time numbers.

In the example above we use write_date_string() but we also need to add the number format to ensure that Excel displays it as as date:

 ...

 local date_format = workbook:add_format({num_format = "mmmm d yyyy"})
 ...

 for _, expense in ipairs(expenses) do
   ...
   worksheet:write_date_string(row, col + 1, date, date_format)
   ...
 end

Date handling is explained in more detail in working_with_dates_and_time.

The last addition to our program is the set_column method to adjust the width of column "B" so that the dates are more clearly visible:

 -- Adjust the column width.
 worksheet:set_column("B:B", 15)

That completes the tutorial section.

In the next sections we will look at the API in more detail starting with workbook.


Last updated: 4 years ago | Edit on GitHub

Package:xlsxwriter
Pkg type:Lua+ffi
Version: v0.0.6-29-g434ee37
Last commit:
Author: John McNamara
License: MIT

Requires: minizip2  luajit 

Required by: none


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