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I need help with the Excel Range collection and cell formatting using Automation.

Hi guys,

Question 1
I am trying to import an excel price list of books into my Delphi Application, the excel file is using custom formatting on each cell containing an ISBN number the formatting used is: (0000000000). In excel it displays the correct results ie: 0072226803.

When I access the cell using
Excel.Cells.Item[1,1]

it returns: 72226803, this throws the validation out because an ISBN number must be 10 characters in length and the first two zeros have gone AWOL.
How would I access the cells value and preserve the leading zeros? Keep in mind that the Spreadsheets differ from supplier to supplier so their ISBN columns may have different formatting, ultimately I want to access the value as its seen on the spreadsheet...

Question 2
Most of the documentation shows the Cells collection being accessed as follows:
Cells(rwIndex, colIndex).Value

My problem is that with the Excel_TLB, the only way to access an individual cell by row, col is with the Item property and this returns an OleVariant which pretty much only contains the cells content. How would I access other properties for an individual cell?

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated!

Ubethatway

Hi,

Would a suitable solution be to simply pad the numbers with 0's up to 10 digits? e.g.:

function pad(X: String): String;
padded := X;

while (length(padded) <> 10) do
padded := '0'+padded;

result := padded;
end;

Remembering to convert the value to a string before passing it to the function.

Hope that helps, Mark.

scandiumza

ASKER

Hey Mark,

I was thinking of padding it but the problem comes in with the validation. If, through human error, the ISBN numbers in the pricelist are the incorrect length and they get padded, they will be passed as valid when tested. These invalid entries should not appear in the application.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

atul_parmar

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atul_parmar

var
x : olevariant; >>> Missed out
After you finish working with the object free it by
x := unassigned;

In your case, all you have to do is to use the olevariant or cast the object to IDispatch.

scandiumza

ASKER

Now that works precisely how I need it to work!

Any chance of this working with the Excel Type Library?

Thanks atul!

atul_parmar

Yep, As I said previously you will need to cast it to IDispatch

e.g.
var
x : olevariant;
myexcel : texcelapplication;
begin
x := IDispatch(myexcel.defaultinterface);
x.visible := True;
end;

scandiumza

ASKER

Oh okay, I see now. Sorry, not too clued up with COM programming.

Thanks again!