Apache Jakarta POI
|
|
POI, a sub-project of the Apache Jakarta Project, provides pure Java libraries for reading and writing files in Microsoft Office formats, such as Word and Excel.
The name was originally an acronym for "Poor Obfuscation Implementation", referring humourously to the fact that the file formats seemed to be deliberately obfuscated, but poorly, since they were successfully reverse-engineered. This expansion - and those of the similar names for the various sub-projects - were removed from the official web-pages in order to better market the tools to businesses who would not consider such humour appropriate.
The Apache Jakarta POI project contains the following subcomponents:
- POIFS (Poor Obfuscation Implementation File System) - This component reads and writes Microsoft's OLE 2 Compound Documentation format. Since all Microsoft Office files are OLE 2 files, this component is the basic building block of all the other POI elements. POIFS can therefore be used to read a wider variety of files, beyond those whose explicit decoders are already written in POI.
- HSSF (Horrible Spreadsheet Format) - reads and writes Microsoft Excel (XLS) format files. It can read files written by Excel 97 onwards. This file format is known as the BIFF 8 format.
- HPSF (Horrible Property Set Format) - reads "Document Summary" information from Microsoft Office files. This is essentially the information that one can see by using the File|Properties menu item within an Office application.
- HWPF (Horrible Word Processor Format) - aims to read and write Microsoft Word 97 (DOC) format files. This component is in initial stages of development.
External link
- Jakarta POI (http://jakarta.apache.org/poi) - the official page at the Apache Jakarta Project