This is a tool that converts Excel files of a certain structure to JSON files. It watches Excel files for any changes and constantly produces JSON files based on the workbooks.

Usage

Command line version

$ lein deps
$ lein run SOURCE [TARGETDIR]

Where SOURCE stands either for a directory containing any number of Excel workbooks or a specific Excel workbook; both can be specified either as a relative or absolute path. TARGETDIR (optional) is the destination directory of the JSON files (defaults to SOURCE). This will start the watcher which will print out progress as files are modified and scanned.

The watcher can also be disabled via this command line flag:

$ lein run SOURCE [TARGETDIR] --disable-watching

GUI version

$ lein run -m excel-to-json.gui

To package the gui version into a self-contained jar:

$ lein uberjar excel-to-json.gui

Rules

Data Types

The following data types for values are supported:

• Number

  If the value of the cell parses as an integer or float, it is converted to a JSON number. Integers are generated without decimals and floats with decimals, but in JSON they are the same type.

• Boolean

  Values that are either "true" or "false" (case insensitive) are converted to boolean.

• String

  Any other string value is kept as a string.

Arrays

Data types can also exist inside an array. In that case, every item in the array will be treated as its individual data type. For example, the array a,2,true will convert to ["a", 2, true].

Sheet Rules

The Excel workbook has to follow a few rules to be parsable. Only sheets names ending with ".json" will be converted to JSON files. The name of the JSON file will be the same as the the sheet name. Thus, a workbook containing three sheets, Example.json, Numbers and Data.json will only produce two files, Example.json and Data.json.

Data rules

Data inside a sheet will be parsed as a table and produces a list of row objects. The following workbook:

Example.json (Sheet 1)

id	property_1	property_2
foo	123	abc
bar	345	def

Will produce Example.json containing:

[
  {
    "id": "foo",
    "property_1": 123,
    "property_2": "abc"
  },
  {
    "id": "bar",
    "property_1": 345,
    "property_2": "def"
  }
]

Arrays

Arrays in cells are achieved by annotating the column name with a @ in the end. An optional splitting character can be appended, but , is the default.

Individual values are trimmed (leading and trailing space removed) and empty values are discarded.

Example.json (Sheet 1)

id	prop_a@	prop_b@;
foo	a,, 2 ,true	;test; data

This sheet will generate Example.json containing:

[
  {
    "id": "foo",
    "prop_a": [
      "a",
      2,
      true
    ],
    "prop_b": [
      "test",
      "data"
    ]
  }
]

Sub Properties

Single Sheet Sub Properties

A column name with dots, will produce a sub tree like structure.

Example.json (Sheet 1)

id	prop.a	prop.b
foo	19	21

This sheet will generate Example.json containing:

[
  {
    "id": "foo",
    "prop": {
      "a": 19,
      "b": 21
    }
  }
]

Keyed Sub Properties

Sub properties can also be generated with subsequent sheets. A naming scheme can be employed to split up the generation of one file into several sheets: sheets ending with a hash (#) and an identifier will be grouped into the same JSON file. For example, Example.json, Example.json#traits and Example.json#properties will all be merged into a single file, Example.json. The value of the identifier is ignored.

When using multiple sheets to generate one file, the subsequent sheets will be assumed to carry sub properties in their second columns.

Example.json (Sheet 1)

id
foo
bar

Example.json#traits (Sheet 2)

id	traits	a	b
foo	first	1	9
foo	second	2	8
foo	third	3	7
bar	first	4	6
bar	second	5	5

These will together generate Example.json containing:

[
  {
    "id": "foo",
    "traits": {
      "first": {
        "a": 1,
        "b": 9
      },
      "second": {
        "a": 2,
        "b": 8
      },
      "third": {
        "a": 3,
        "b": 7
      }
    }
  },
  {
    "id": "bar",
    "traits": {
      "first": {
        "a": 4,
        "b": 6
      },
      "second": {
        "a": 5,
        "b": 5
      }
    }
  }
]

The column traits will be indexed by the values in that column, and the following colunmns will be group under the resptive key in traits.

List Sub Properties

Example.json (Sheet 1)

id
foo
bar

Example.json#properties (Sheet 2)

id	properties	prop_a	prop_b
foo		baz_1	100
foo		baz_2	200
foo		baz_3	300
bar		baz_4	400
bar		baz_5	500

[
  {
    "id": "foo",
    "properties": [
      {
        "prop_a": "baz_1",
        "prop_b": 100
      },
      {
        "prop_a": "baz_2",
        "prop_b": 200
      },
      {
        "prop_a": "baz_3",
        "prop_b": 300
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "bar",
    "properties": [
      {
        "prop_a": "baz_4",
        "prop_b": 400
      },
      {
        "prop_a": "baz_5",
        "prop_b": 500
      }
    ]
  }
]

Single Object Sheet

The tool interprets any sheet with a trailing @ character in the name as a single JSON object. Only one sheet with the same file name can exist. It is not possible to have any text after the @ character in the sheet name.

A single object sheet consists of two columns, keys and values. Parsing generates one JSON object that is the sole contents of the final JSON file. Keys are of the same data format as the column headers in normal sheets. Value cells obey the rules in the same way as in normal sheets.

A header row must exist in a single object sheet. The header row must have a value in the first cell (the tool counts all rows without values in the first cell as extra data and ignores them).

global.json@ (Sheet 1)

ignored	ignored
foo	1
bar.baz	test
bar.qux@	a,b

This sheet will generate global.json containing:

{
  "foo": 1,
  "bar": {
    "baz": "test",
    "qux": ["a", "b"]
  }
}

Extra Data

Extra data can be stored in a sheet that is exported to JSON. There are two ways to include this data:

• Keep the first cell in a row empty.

  This means that any row that does not have an primary key is ignored. This is also true for rows above the header row.

• Keep the header in the header row empty.

  If the header row is missing a header (except the first cell, which must be the primary key), the columns is ignored.

In both cases, the other cells in the rows and columns can still contain data that can be included in formulas, it will just not be put into the JSON.

id	property_1		property_2
foo	123	this column will be ignored	abc
bar	345	blah	def
	this row will be ignored	blah	1

Example

Example.json (Sheet 1)

id	property_1	property_2
foo	123	abc
bar	345	def

Example.json#traits (Sheet 2)

id	traits	property_a	property_b	property_c.qux
foo	first	a	9	11
foo	second	b	8	22
foo	third	c	7	33
bar	first	d	6	44
bar	second	e	5	55

Example.json#properties (Sheet 3)

id	properties	prop_a	prop_b
foo		baz_1	100
foo		baz_2	200
foo		baz_3	300
bar		baz_4	400
bar		baz_5	500

Results in the following content for Example.json:

[
  {
    "id": "foo",
    "property_1": 123,
    "property_2": "abc",
    "traits": {
      "third": {
        "property_c": {
          "qux": 33
        },
        "property_b": 7,
        "property_a": "c"
      },
      "second": {
        "property_c": {
          "qux": 22
        },
        "property_b": 8,
        "property_a": "b"
      },
      "first": {
        "property_c": {
          "qux": 11
        },
        "property_b": 9,
        "property_a": "a"
      }
    },
    "properties": [
      {
        "prop_b": 100,
        "prop_a": "baz_1"
      },
      {
        "prop_b": 200,
        "prop_a": "baz_2"
      },
      {
        "prop_b": 300,
        "prop_a": "baz_3"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "bar",
    "property_1": 345,
    "property_2": "def",
    "traits": {
      "second": {
        "property_c": {
          "qux": 55
        },
        "property_b": 6,
        "property_a": "f"
      },
      "first": {
        "property_c": {
          "qux": 44
        },
        "property_b": 6,
        "property_a": "d"
      }
    },
    "properties": [
      {
        "prop_b": 400,
        "prop_a": "baz_4"
      },
      {
        "prop_b": 500,
        "prop_a": "baz_5"
      }
    ]
  }
]