Re: XLPARSER4 Interface to HSSF

Hello,

My responses are in-line:

I've seen in his source code that there is a procedure called
ParseSheet_parse, but I don't know how it's used. It's mapped to a
method in his own class and I can't find any Javadoc for it. The
interface declares a file name as the first parameter but I presume
this is the path/file name of the work-book.

Correct.

I've also noted that the callback interfaces from the
xlparse_workbook routine return the sheet name. Does this imply that
we use a Select within the callback procedure to only process when
we're in the required sheet?

Correct. If you want to use this method (the "event model"), it always reads the entire workbook. It's up you to write code to ignore the parts that aren't useful to you.

Does this mean the parser parses sheet by sheet from 1 to last, then
within each sheet, each row, and within each row each column to
return the cell value?

Yes, I think so. At least, that's been my experience with it.

How can I tell when the parse process has ended?

When xlparse_workbook() returns control back to your code, you know it's finished.

How can I tell when the last column has been encountered?

use xlparse_notify() as described here:
http://systeminetwork.com/article/new-functions-xlparser4

At the moment I generate a write to DB2 when my code has encountered the last column.
Is this the correct technique?

Yes.