72 lines
3.6 KiB
XML
72 lines
3.6 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "../dtd/document-v11.dtd">
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<document>
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<header>
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<title>Hacking HSSF</title>
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<authors>
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<person email="glens@apache.org" name="Glen Stampoultzis" id="GJS"/>
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<person email="acoliver@apache.org" name="Andrew Oliver" id="AO"/>
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</authors>
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</header>
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<body>
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<section><title>Where Can I Find Documentation on Feature X</title>
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<p>
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You might find the
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'Excel 97 Developer's Kit' (out of print, Microsoft Press, no
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restrictive covenants, available on Amazon.com) helpful for
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understanding the file format.
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</p>
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<p>
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Also useful is the <link href="http://sc.openoffice.org/excelfileformat.pdf">open office XLS spec</link>. We
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are collaborating with the maintainer of the spec so if you think you can add something to their
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document just send through your changes.
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</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>Help, I Can't Find Feature X Documented Anywhere</title>
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<ol>
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<li>
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Look at OpenOffice.org or Gnumeric sources if its implemented there.
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</li>
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<li>
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Use org.apache.poi.hssf.dev.BiffViewer to view the structure of the
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file. Experiment by adding one criteria entry at a time. See what it
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does to the structure, infer behavior and structure from it. Using the
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unix diff command (or get cygwin from www.cygwin.com for windows) you
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can figure out a lot very quickly. Unimplemented records show up as
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'UNKNOWN' and prints a hex dump.
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</li>
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</ol>
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</section>
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<section><title>Low-level Record Generation</title>
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<p>
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Low level records can be time consuming to created. We created a record
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generator to help generate some of the simpler tasks.
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</p>
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<p>
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We use XML
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descriptors to generate the Java code (which sure beats the heck out of
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the PERL scripts originally used ;-) for low level records. The
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generator is kinda alpha-ish right now and could use some enhancement,
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so you may find that to be about 1/2 of the work. Notice this is in
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org.apache.poi.hssf.record.definitions.
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</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>Important Notice</title>
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<p>One thing to note: If you are making a large code contribution we need to ensure
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any participants in this process have never
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signed a "Non Disclosure Agreement" with Microsoft, and have not
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received any information covered by such an agreement. If they have
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they'll not be able to participate in the POI project. For large contributions we
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may ask you to sign an agreement.</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>What Can I Work On?</title>
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<p>Check our <link href="../todo.html">todo list</link> or simply look for missing functionality. Start small
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and work your way up.</p>
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</section>
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<section><title>What Else Should I Know?</title>
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<p>Make sure you <link href="http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/contrib.html">read the contributing section</link>
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as it contains more generation information about contributing to Poi in general.</p>
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</section>
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</body>
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</document> |