Question

Trouble with updating columns in excel via VB.NET

Asked by: qz8dsw

Hi all,

I've been tasked with updating a program that was written in VB5 around 10 years ago and updating it to VB.NET.
Although a complete re-write would have been advisable time to re-learn the original codes logic and re-write did not allow it.
So Yup, I used the convert wizard.
It's pretty much going great and even was able to get most of the old legacy VB code out.
One thing that did not work from start and is still not is updating a specific row and column in an excel spreadsheet with a value.
I've tried many and varied ways and spent 4 odd hours on google chopping and changing code to make this work.
I know I'm close, but not close enough.

Although I'll kick myself any help would be appriciated.

Cheers
Terry

Sub Update_Excel(ByRef intColumn As Short, ByRef strField As String, ByRef iRow As Short)
        Dim oConn As New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" & My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath & "\" & strSpreadSheet & ";Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;"";")
        Dim recordsupdated As Int16
        ' Open a connection to the Excel spreadsheet
        oConn.Open()
        ' This SQL statement selects a cell range in the worksheet.
        Dim oCmd As New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand()
        oCmd.Connection = oConn
        oCmd.CommandText = "UPDATE " & strSSColumn & iRow & ":" & strSSColumn & iRow & " SET " & strSSColumn & iRow & "=" & strField 
        ' Open a recordset containing the worksheet data.
        oCmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
        oConn.Close()
 
        oCmd = Nothing
        oConn = Nothing
    End Sub

                                  
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Asked On
2009-09-09 at 23:07:10ID24720408
Tags

Visual Studio 2005 insert records excel ADO VB.NET

Topic

Microsoft Visual Basic.Net

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Answers

 

by: omegaomegaPosted on 2009-09-10 at 10:03:25ID: 25302170

Hello, Terry,

There are a couple of things about that code that seem mysterious to me.  

I'm not particularly familiar with the OleDB connection strings, so beg your patience if this is obvious.  I can't see where strSpreadSheet or strSSColumn are coming from so assume that they are module or global scope variables specified elsewhere.  Does one of these include a specification of which Worksheet in the Workbook is the target for the update?

Also, the argument intColumn does not appear to be used in the routine.  Is this an oversight, or just a redundancy from the external assignment of strSSColumn?

Finally (and as I'm not very familiar with OleDB, and when all you have is a hammer...)  Is there a fundamental reason for not using Excel directly.  That is, I would probably have just added a reference in my project to the Excel library and used code similar to that in the snippet.  Here I am making wild assumptions about the contents of strSpreadSheet, the name of the sheet that you want to update, and how intColumn is intended to be used.  (If multiple frequent updates are required, you could consider moving the creation/quitting of the Excel application and opening/closing the workbook outside of the update routine.

Cheers,
Randy

    Sub Update_Excel(ByRef intColumn As Short, ByRef strField As String, ByRef iRow As Short)
 
        Dim xlApp As Excel.Application = CType(CreateObject("Excel.Application"), Excel.Application)
        Dim wbkToUpdate As Excel.Workbook = xlApp.Workbooks.Open(My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath & "\" & strSpreadSheet)
        Dim wshToUpdate As Excel.Worksheet = DirectCast(wbkToUpdate.Worksheets("Sheet1"), Excel.Worksheet)
        Dim rngToUpdate As Excel.Range = wshToUpdate.Cells(iRow, intColumn)
        rngToUpdate.Value = strField
        wbkToUpdate.Close(SaveChanges:=True)
        xlApp.Quit()
 
    End Sub
                                              
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by: qz8dswPosted on 2009-09-11 at 00:38:54ID: 25307309

Hi omega,

First thanks for replying.
You are correct about strSpreadSheet and strSSColumn, the are publicly available values.
Strangely enough in VB5 I didn't need a reference to the table name and with the conversion intColumn and irow is not needed.

Yes there is a fundamental reason I'm not using Excel as you have shown with your code.
This program is a windows service, (Yes with an OCX you could have a windows service in VB5), What I have found in the past and still currently is people using word/excel for daily use of their computer and a background service also using said programs do not mix.
If the user was using excel and the service tried to spawn it's own process to read/update the spreadsheet, then if the user closed their excel the windows service access to the spreadsheet died.
This is why even back in VB5 days this was written not to spawn the application, but use CDO/ADO to do the job which did not affect the normal user of the machine or the service. They were in essence seperated.

I have found how to do what I was after and it's not to bad to do.
After opening the connection the update command is pretty much
Update [table name$] set [column name]=@parameter where [column name]=@parameter

I want the strUpdatedDate to be a string in the spreadsheet so I wrap it in chr(34)'s (double quotes)
The 2 big parts I was originally missing was using the @parameters and then using the oCmd.Parameters.Add to tell it what the parameter equals.

Cheers,
Terry

    Sub Update_Excel(ByRef strField As String)
        Dim oConn As New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" & My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath & "\" & strSpreadSheet & ";Extended Properties=""Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;"";")
        Dim intRecordsUpdated As Int16
        Dim strUpdatedDate As String
        strUpdatedDate = Chr(34) & Format(FileDateTime(strField), "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss").ToString & Chr(34)
        ' Open a connection to the Excel spreadsheet
        oConn.Open()
        Dim oCmd As New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand()
        oCmd.Connection = oConn
        ' This SQL statement updates a cell in the worksheet.
        ' Yes hardcoded column names and spreadsheet names, but hey, this is a one off app fix and very specialised. If these were EVER going to change I'd make it dynamic.
        oCmd.CommandText = "UPDATE [Files$] set [Date Processed]=@UpdateDate where [PC Filename]=@PCFilename"
        oCmd.Parameters.Add(New OleDbParameter("@UpdateDate", strUpdatedDate))
        oCmd.Parameters.Add(New OleDbParameter("@PCFilename", strField))
 
        intRecordsUpdated = oCmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
        oConn.Close()
 
        oCmd = Nothing
        oConn = Nothing
    End Sub

                                              
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by: omegaomegaPosted on 2009-09-11 at 09:26:40ID: 25311089

Hi, Terry,

Glad to know that you found a workable solution.

Cheers,
Randy

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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