Simple Python script to access Excel file meta-data/data

Recently I got interested in Python programming actually this was my first scripting language and its really a handy tool. I would like to share a small code which  can access Excel(*.xls) file.  I am assuming that you are having Ubuntu machine. In order to run this code you need to have xlrd package and Python installed. If your system doesn't have xlrd package then you can install it in two ways.

you can install by use of pip  

$ sudo pip install xlrd 

otherwise try to execute below command 

$ sudo apt-get install python-xlrd

Here is a simple code which demonstrate a few functionality of this library.

#!/usr/bin/python
import optparse  ###Option parser
try:
import xlrd; ###Need to make sure xlrd library is available
except ImportError:
 print 'Could not find package "xlrd". Try installing it first'
 print ''
 print 'Halting.'
 sys.exit(1)

def formatDataTypeString(dataType):
 # Cell Types: 0=Empty, 1=Text, 2=Number, 3=Date, 4=Boolean, 5=Error, 6=Blank
 formatString =":"
 if dataType == 0:
   formatString +=" Empty :"
 elif dataType == 1:
   formatString +=" Text :"
 elif dataType == 2:
   formatString +=" Number :"
 elif dataType == 3:
   formatString +=" Date :"
 elif dataType == 4:
   formatString +=" Boolean :"
 elif dataType == 5:
    formatString +=" Error :"
 elif dataType == 6:
    formatString +=" Blank :"

   return formatString


def metaData(xlFile):
    """This method takes one argument which is xl file name. It display the 
    meta-data of the xl file. It displays sheet names present in the file 
    and the content type.
    """
    book = xlrd.open_workbook(xlFile) 
    print("#########sheet Names#########") 
    sheetNames = ""
    for sheet in book.sheet_names():
        sheetNames += str(sheet) + " "
    print(sheetNames)

    sheets = book.sheets()
    for sheet in sheets:
       
        print("=====" + str(sheet.name) + "(" + str(sheet.nrows) + ", " + str(sheet.ncols) + ")=====")
        if sheet.ncols > 0:
            curCol = 0;
            colsType = ""
            while curCol < sheet.ncols:
                colsType +=formatDataTypeString(sheet.cell_type(0,curCol))   
                curCol +=1         
            print("First row cell Type " + colsType)
        else:
            print("Sheet is empty")

def showData(xlFile, sheetName):
    """This method takes two arguments xlFile name and SheetName. 
    It display data if it is present in the provided sheet"""
    book = xlrd.open_workbook(xlFile)
    if sheetName:
        sheet = book.sheet_by_name(sheetName)
    else:
        sheet = book.sheet_by_index(0)
    if sheet.nrows > 0:
        for i in xrange(sheet.nrows):
            print(sheet.row_values(i))
    else:
        print ("Sheet is empty")

def main():
    ##Argument parsing

    parser = optparse.OptionParser(usage = "%prog filename [options] \n" )
    parser.add_option("-m","--metadata",
                        action="store_true",
                        default = False,
                        dest = "metaData",
                        help = "Meta information of XL sheet")
    parser.add_option("-d","--showData",
                        action="store_true",
                        default = False,
                        dest = "showData",
                        help = "Show Data of specified sheet otherwise show data from first sheet")
    parser.add_option("-s","--sheet",
                        dest = "sheetName",
                        help = "Sheet name whose data you want to see. This option should be used with -s(--showData) option")
    
    (options, args) = parser.parse_args()
    #print (args)
    if len(args) != 1:
        parser.print_help()
        return -1
    else:
        if not args[0]:
            print("Please provide file name")
            print("")
            parser.print_help()
            return -1
        else: 
            if options.metaData:
                metaData(args[0])
            elif options.showData:
                showData(xlFile=args[0], sheetName=options.sheetName)
            else:
                parser.print_help()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

you can find the find source code here
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