Write Data to Excel using C#

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Introduction

This article will help to write data to Excel using C# without playing with Excel.Application. With the help of the ExcelFileWriter class, it is very easy to write data to an Excel sheet.

Background

Those who are lazy to read the help of Excel.Application in order to write to an Excel sheet can make use of this article and code base.

Using the Code

Firstly, add the reference "Microsoft Excel 11.0 Object Library" by right clicking the References from Visual Studio .NET and select the COM tab. If Excel 11.0 is not there, select Excel 5.0.

The ExcelFileWriter class is an abstract class.

In order to write, for example, a set of int values to an Excel sheet, the steps to follow are listed below:

1. Add ExcelFileWriter.cs into your project.

2. Let's assume you want to add numbers from 1 to 20 which are already populated in the List. You can have any data type inside the list.

3. Create an object of ExcelFileWriter class. Since my collection class, List, is of type int, I create an object of ExcelFileWriter using int. You can use whatever data type you want as ExcelFileWriter is of generic type.

4. Call the API, WriteDataToExcel and pass the name of the Excel file, the data, the starting column in Excel and the ending column.

   C#

   List<int> myList = new List<int>();
   for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
   {
   myList.Add(i);
   }
   ExcelFileWriter<int> myExcel = new ExcelWrite();
   myExcel.WriteDateToExcel(@"C:\TEMP\myExcel.xls",myList,"A1","D1");

5. Create a class which derives from ExcelFileWriter and make an object[] as a member variable.

6. Override the functions and properties.

1. Override "Headers" -> return the name of the Column Headers in the Excel sheet:

   C#

   public override object[] Headers
   {
   get 
   {
   object[] headerName = { "Header1", "Header2", "Header3", "Header4" };
   return headerName;
   }

2. Override RowCount and ColumnCount.

3. Override FillRowData -> fill the exceldata object:

   C#

   public override void FillRowData(List<int> list)
   {
   myRowCnt = list.Count;
   myExcelData = new object[RowCount + 1, 4];
   for (int row = 1; row <= myRowCnt; row++)
   {
   for (int col = 0; col < 4; col++)
   {
   myExcelData[row, col] = list[row - 1];
   }
   }
   }

4. Override ExcelData:

   C#

   public override object[,] ExcelData
   {
   get 
   {
   return myExcelData;
   }
   }

That's it. Build it and Run and you can see that the data is written to the Excel sheet. The important part is you didn't have the headache of understanding the Excel object.

Hope it helps.

History

• 6^th July, 2007: Initial post