| Migrating
ExcelTemplate Applications from Interop to Pure .NET |
 |
| In previous versions of OfficeWriter
for Excel, .NET support was added through the introduction of Interop assemblies.
These Interop assemblies facilitated communication between .NET applications
and the COM version of OfficeWriter. |
| |
| In OfficeWriter v3, .NET support
has been further improved with the introduction of the SAXW5NET.dll assembly,
which provides a pure .NET ExcelTemplate object. To migrate your existing
Interop-based OfficeWriter application to use the new pure .NET ExcelTemplate object there are four main areas where you will need to make modifications: |
| |
| |
| |
1.OfficeWriter
for Excel Namespace and Application References |
| |
| Old Namespace Import: |
New Namespace Import: |
[C#]
using
SoftArtisans.ExcelWriter;
[VB.NET]
Imports
SoftArtisans.ExcelWriter |
[C#]
using
SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter;
[VB.NET]
Imports
SoftArtisans.Officewriter.ExcelWriter |
|
| |
| |
| Old Object Instantiation: |
New Object Instantiation: |
[C#]
SAExcelTemplateDotNet
oXlw = new SAExcelTemplateDotNet();
[VB.NET]
Dim oXlw As New SAExcelTemplateDotNet() |
[C#]
ExcelTemplate
oXlw = new ExcelTemplate();
[VB.NET]
Dim oXlw As New SAExcelTemplate () |
|
| |
| |
| |
| 2.
Setting Data Sources |
 |
| With the pure .NET ExcelTemplate object, the setting of data sources has changed to accommodate more native
.NET types. The most significant change is that you can now use ADO.NET
DataTables and DataReaders as data sources (in addition to DataSets). In
the previous version you needed to pass in the DataSet that contained the
DataTable. Now you can just pass in the DataTable to one of the overloaded SetDataSource methods. The new .NET ExcelTemplate also includes many new methods for setting array data sources (1-dimensional
and 2-dimensional). |
| |
| |
| |
| 3.
Template Processing and Saving |
|
To process and save a spreadsheet
with the Interop version of ExcelTemplate,
a single call to Process was required.
In the .NET ExcelTemplate, a call to Process and a call to Save are required. This second
approach allows you to save more than one copy of a generated file, and/or
both save the file on the server and stream it to the client. Using multiple Process and Save calls, you can generate multiple files from a single template and an updated
data source. |
| |
| |
| |
| 4.
Data Marker Syntax |
|
Most of your existing templates
should still work with the pure .NET ExcelTemplate object. However, there are two things to be aware of:
- The data markers must be comprised of the characters and/or
numbers: a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
- The dollar sign ($) is no longer necessary in all non-database
data markers. This makes it easier for developers to use mock data
in arrays during development; when the report is deployed to use a
database, the data markers will not have to be changed. The $ is now
only required when binding to a single object or single columnar array,
where a field name or field ordinal is not specified in the data marker.
|
|
| |
| |
| Please
Note: Your existing templates will still work, if you leave the $
in place. This allows for the re-use of templates created for the Interop ExcelTemplate object without any modifications. |
| |