Reading from Excel File Visual C++ 2010 Express Edition

[nathan_sizemore]

Hello all,
I am wanting to make a program that reads from an excel file and then writes that data to a csv file. I am aware I can do this through Excel and VBA, but this is not the best approach for my application. I need a simple console application that does this in the background without bringing up Excel and then I need to delete the file I made shortly afterwards.
I understand basics of C++, but every example I see is related to a actual windowed build with Visual C++ and nothing works for a console build. There are several tutorials that take Excel to HTML from C++, but I can't seem to get their code to compile, or have enough experience using any of their classes to modify them for my needs.
If someone could give me a simple snipet of code that will open up an excel file, read from a specific cell on a specific sheet and print that value to the screen, I would be forever grateful. After I get that information, I will be able to do the rest of what I am wanting to do.
Thanks in advance for any help!

Nathan

[VictorN]

You could use ADO to read data from excel sheet and then write them to text file.

[nathan_sizemore]

Thanks for the point to ADO. I am trying to compile a sample that I found online, but I am missing something to include/import/namespace, something. I just don't know exactly what I am missing?
I have been looking at everything I can find on ADO, and I found some example code, but unfortunately all written by Japanese people, so I can't read the comments at all, and they seem pretty advanced.
Any help with what I am missing would be awesome

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>

#import "msado15.dll" \
	no_namespace rename("EOF", "EndOfFile")
	
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
		//Connection string
		std::string con_string = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\\Documents and Settings\\nathan.sizemore\\My Documents\\Purchase_Req_Form.xlsm;Extended Properties='Excel 12.0 Macro;HDR=NO'";
	
		//Create and open a Recordset
		TESTHR(pRec.CreateInstance(__uuidof(Recordset)));       
		TESTHR(pRec->Open("SELECT * FROM [Plain_VDR$]", con_string, adOpenStatic, adLockOptimistic, adCmdText));
	
		//Extract values of cells
		while (!pRec->adoEOF)
		{
			for (long i = 0; i < pRec->Fields->GetCount(); ++i)
			{
				if (i > 0) 
				{
					stream<<";";
				}
				
				_variant_t v = pRec->Fields->GetItem(i)->Value;
				
				if(v.vt == VT_R8)                                           
				{
					stream<<v.dblVal;
				}
				if(v.vt == VT_BSTR)
				{
					stream<<(char*)(_bstr_t)<<v.bstrVal;
				}
			}
			
			stream<<std::endl;
			pRec->MoveNext();
		}
}

This is the error list I am receiving

Error	1	error C2065: 'pRec' : undeclared identifier
Error	2	error C2228: left of '.CreateInstance' must have class/struct/union
Error	3	error C3861: 'TESTHR': identifier not found
Error	4	error C2065: 'pRec' : undeclared identifier
Error	5	error C2227: left of '->Open' must point to
Error	6	error C3861: 'TESTHR': identifier not found
Error	7	error C2065: 'pRec' : undeclared identifier
Error	8	error C2227: left of '->adoEOF' must point to class/struct/union/generic type
Error	9	error C1903: unable to recover from previous error(s); stopping compilation
	10	IntelliSense: identifier "TESTHR" is undefined
	11	IntelliSense: identifier "pRec" is undefined
	12	IntelliSense: identifier "stream" is undefined
	13	IntelliSense: identifier "stream" is undefined
	14	IntelliSense: identifier "stream" is undefined
	15	IntelliSense: type name is not allowed
	16	IntelliSense: identifier "stream" is undefined

Thanks again for any help on these issues...

Nathan

[GCDEF]

You can do it using ODBC and CRecordset also.

[VictorN]

You can do it using ODBC and CRecordset also.

AFAIK VS 2010 Express does not contain MFC.

[nathan_sizemore]

ADO seems to have what I need. Any idea on what I am missing to include or namespace I should be using to resolve these erros?

[Igor Vartanov]

You have missed to define a pRec smartpointer (seems should be _RecordsetPtr, see in generated .thi). The same to TESTHR macro. It looks like you copied the snipped from somewhere, and the copy appears incomplete.

[nathan_sizemore]

You have missed to define a pRec smartpointer (seems should be _RecordsetPtr, see in generated .thi). The same to TESTHR macro. It looks like you copied the snipped from somewhere, and the copy appears incomplete.

Yeah, I noticed that after I downloaded the working source code and compiled. I've never gotten this detailed with C++ before (Assigning variant classes, include SQL DB stuff) and am trying to hack my way through it, but it is very cumbersome to figure out errors when you have no idea what they mean or enough of the language to know where to start looking.
After I get this thing actually working and know what each thing does, I will throw up my code because it seems to be a very needed topic and not that many step by step tutorials. Seems to be more of one decent C++ developer telling another C++ developer what Libraries to use. Nothing seems to capture the fact that maybe a developer not that familiar with the C++ language needs to do this task, but doesn't know enough about the language, yet, to get there.

Nathan

[Igor Vartanov]

In fact, you hit a very specific topic of importing COM server in your C++ program. Very little it has to do with C++ real complexities, but requires quite a good knowledge of COM technology.

I don't know the background, but say in VB, VBScript or JScript it would look much and much simpler, and maybe you should try with some language other than C++.

[nathan_sizemore]

I'm too close to turn back now Only have to figure out how to select a certain 'Sheet' and everything else should work fine.

[Igor Vartanov]

Try this: Office Space: Tips and Tricks for Scripting Microsoft Office Applications

What you to focus on is ADO connection string and SQL query.

[Igor Vartanov]

How To Use ADO with Excel Data from Visual Basic or VBA

[nathan_sizemore]

Thanks for the replies Igor, very helpful.