libxl

What it is

Node.js bindings for libxl. Both Node 0.10 and Node 0.11 starting with 0.11.13 are supported.

Compilation and Installation

Pull the library into your project with npm install libxl and require the module via

var xl = require('libxl');

LibXL installation

As this packages contains only bindings for the libxl library, the library itself is required for building and running the bindings.

Compilation Phase

Before the bindings are compiled, the install-libxl.js script pulls the latest version of the library from the libxl website and unpacks it in deps/libxl. Therefore, no separate installation of libxl is necessary for building the bindings.

However, if you want to compile and run against a particular version of libxl, you can do so by manually unpacking the library archive into deps/libxl before building the bindings. This will bypass the install-libxl.js script and build the bindings against that specific version of the library.

Runtime

In order to load and use the bindings, the libxl library must be available in your dynamic library search path. This is achieved by either

Copying the library into your system library search path, e.g. /usr/lib on Linux.

Copying the library into the working directory where you run the scrip which uses the bindings. The name of the library file is libxl.so on Linux, libxl.dylib on Mac and libxl.dll on Windows.

Properly setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (Linux) or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH (Mac) environment variable. For example, the following command will execute the demo.js script in the package directory without requiring libxl to be installed separately

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="`pwd`/deps/libxl/lib:`pwd`/deps/libxl/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" node demo.js

Overriding the location of the compiled bindings

You can override the location where the Javascript wrapper looks for the libxl.node file by setting the NODE_LIBXL_PATH environment variable. This allows to distribute / deploy an application that uses the bindings to a system which runs on a different platform / architecture without recompiling the bindings there.

API

Usage

A new excel document is created via

var xlsBook = new xl.Book(xl.BOOK_TYPE_XLS);

or

var xlsxBook = new xl.Book(xl.BOOK_TYPE_XLSX);

(for xlsx documents). The document is written to disk via

xlsBook.writeSync('file.xls');

and read back via

xlsBook.loadSync('file.xls');

(async operations are not implemented atm).

The Javascript API closely follows the C++ API described in the libxl documentation. For example, adding a new sheet and writing two cells works as

var sheet = xlsBook.addSheet('Sheet 1');
sheet.writeStr(1, 0, 'A string');
sheet.writeNum(1, 1, 42);

Functions whose C++ counterpart returns void or an error status have been implemented to return the respective instance, so it is possible to chain calls

sheet
    .writeStr(1, 0, 'A string');
    .writeNum(1, 1, 42);

Errors are handled by throwing exceptions.

Functions that return multiple values by reference in C++ (like Book::dateUnpack) return a object with the return values as properties.

See 'Differences...' below for a more detailed description of the methods whose behavior differs from their C++ counterpart.

IMPORTANT: The Javascript API enforces the types defined in its C++ counterpart for all function arguments; there is no implicit type casting. For example, passing a Number to Sheet::writeStr will throw a TypeError instead of silently converting the string to a number.

Coverage

The bindings cover the libxl API almost completely. The only functions still missing are the methods for managing pictures embedded in spreadsheets and book.loadRaw / book.saveRaw.

Differences w.r.t. the C++ API

Not implemented yet

• book.loadRaw
• book.saveRaw
• book.pictureSize
• book.getPicture
• book.addPicture
• book.addPicture2
• sheet.pictureSize
• sheet.getPicture
• sheet.addPicture
• sheet.addPicture2

Interface differences

• book.dateUnpack: Returns an object with year, month, date, hour, minute, seconds and mseconds properties.
• book.colorUnpack: Returns an object with red, green and blue properties.
• book.defaultFont: Returns an object with name and size properties.
• sheet.readStr & friends: If sheet.readXXX is provided with an object as optional second argument, the cell format is returned in the objects format property.
• sheet.getMerge: Returns an object with the rowFirst, rowLast, colFirst, colLast properties.
• sheet.getPrintFit: Returns either false or an object with the wPages and hPages properties.
• sheet.getNamedRange: Returns an object with rowFirst, rowLast, colFirst, colLast and hidden properties.
• sheet.namedRange: Returns an object with rowFirst, rowLast, colFirst, colLast, name, scopeId, and hidden properties.
• sheet.getTopLeftView: Returns an object with row and col properties.
• sheet.addrToRowCol: Returns an object with row, col, rowRelative, colRelative properties.

Other differences

• Book object creation: Books are not created via xlCreateBook and xlCreateXMLBook. Instead, object instances are directly constructed from the xl.Book constructor via either new xl.Book(xl.BOOK_TYPE_XLS) or new xl.Book(xl.BOOK_TYPE_XLSX)
• Accessing the parent book: sheet, format and font objects hold a reference to their parent book that can be accessed via the book property

Unlocking the API

If you have purchased a licence key from XLware, you can call book.setKey in order to unlock the library. As an alternative, you can build the key into the bindings by modifying api_key.h and rebuilding the library via node-gyp rebuild (you'll have to install node-gyp for this) or npm install in the package directory.

Platform support

The package currently supports Linux, Windows and Mac.

Tests

The bindings are fully covered with jasmine tests. If you have jasmine-node installed (via NPM), you can run the suite via

jasmine-node specs/

Reporting bugs

Please report any bugs on the github issue tracker.

Roadmap

Version 0.1 is the first release which covers nearly the full API. For 0.2 (and possibly 0.3), I anticipate adding asynchroneous calls for reading and writing and implementing the remaining functions.

Credits

• Torben Fitschen wrote the install script which pulls the necessary libxl SDK before building.
• Martin Schröder for adding Mac support.
• Parts if this package were developed during slacktime provided by the awesome folks at Mayflower GmbH
• Alexander Makarenko wrote node-excel-libxl Though node-libxl is rewritten from scratch, this package served as the starting point.