MySQL Cookbook

Exchanging Data Between MySQL and Microsoft Excel

Problem

You want to exchange information between MySQL and Excel.

Solution

Use utilities such as DBTools or MySQLFront. Or use Perl modules that read and write Excel spreadsheet files to construct your own data transfer utilities.

Discussion

One way to transfer Excel files into MySQL is to use the DBTools or MySQLFront utilities that were discussed in Recipe 10.39 for working with Access files. Both programs know how to read Excel files as well. But both are Windows-specific; for a more cross-platform solution that works for both Unix and Windows, you can read and write Excel spreadsheets from within Perl scripts by installing a few modules:

• Spreadsheet::ParseExcel::Simple provides an easy-to-use interface for reading Excel spreadsheets.

• Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Simple allows you to create files in Excel spreadsheet format.

These modules are available from the Perl CPAN. (They’re actually frontends to other modules, which you’ll also need to install as prerequisites.) After installing the modules, use these commands to read their documentation:

% perldoc Spreadsheet::ParseExcel::Simple
% perldoc Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Simple

These modules make it relatively easy to write a couple of short scripts (shown below) for converting spreadsheets to and from tab-delimited file format. Combined with techniques for importing and exporting data into and out of MySQL, these scripts can help you move spreadsheet contents to MySQL tables and vice ...