This post shows how you can use jXLS to parse an Excel file into a list of JavaBeans.

Here is a generic utility method I wrote to do that:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

/**
* Parses an excel file into a list of beans.
*
* @param <T> the type of the bean
* @param xlsFile the excel data file to parse
* @param jxlsConfigFile the jxls config file describing how to map rows to beans
* @return the list of beans or an empty list there are none
* @throws Exception if there is a problem parsing the file
*/
public static <T> List<T> parseExcelFileToBeans(final File xlsFile,
 final File jxlsConfigFile)
 throws Exception {
 final XLSReader xlsReader = ReaderBuilder.buildFromXML(jxlsConfigFile);
 final List<T> result = new ArrayList<>();
 final Map<String, Object> beans = new HashMap<>();
 beans.put("result", result);
 try (InputStream inputStream = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(xlsFile))) {
 xlsReader.read(inputStream, beans);
 }
 return result;
}

Example:

Consider the following Excel file containing person information:

 
Create the following Person bean to bind each Excel row to:

package model;

public class Person {

 private String firstName;
 private String lastName;
 private int age;

 public Person() {
 }
 public String getFirstName() {
 return firstName;
 }
 public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
 this.firstName = firstName;
 }
 public String getLastName() {
 return lastName;
 }
 public void setLastName(String lastName) {
 this.lastName = lastName;
 }
 public int getAge() {
 return age;
 }
 public void setAge(int age) {
 this.age = age;
 }
}

Create a jXLS configuration file which tells jXLS how to process your Excel file and map rows to Person objects:

<workbook>
 <worksheet name="Sheet1">
 <section startRow="0" endRow="0" />
 <loop startRow="1" endRow="1" items="result" var="person" varType="model.Person">
 <section startRow="1" endRow="1">
 <mapping row="1" col="0">person.firstName</mapping>
 <mapping row="1" col="1">person.lastName</mapping>
 <mapping row="1" col="2">person.age</mapping>
 </section>
 <loopbreakcondition>
 <rowcheck offset="0">
 <cellcheck offset="0" />
 </rowcheck>
 </loopbreakcondition>
 </loop>
 </worksheet>
</workbook>

Now you can parse the Excel file into a list of Person objects with this one-liner:

List<Person> persons = Utils.parseExcelFileToBeans(new File("/path/to/personData.xls"),
 new File("/path/to/personConfig.xml"));

Related posts:

Parsing a CSV file into JavaBeans using OpenCSV