e:cell formatting of date or number colum fails, if first value is a null value ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Key: JBSEAM-3879 URL: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBSEAM-3879 Project: Seam 2 Issue Type: Sub-task Components: Excel Affects Versions: 2.1.1.GA Environment: Seam 2.1.1.GA, Windows, Jetty Reporter: Alexander Schwartz Assignee: Nicklas Karlsson Labels: excel, null Fix For: 2.2.0.GA Attachments: jxlhelper.java.patch The cell style of a e:cell is cached (for the specific id) when it is accessed for the first time. When the first value is a null value, uiCell.getDataType() is unable to automatically detect the data type of the column and returns 'general'. This is then cached. All other columns are then treated as 'general' in createCell(), and all data is converted using data.toString() leading to ugly results. Our solution is to add "xls-force-type: date" to all e:cell of type number or date. We added this to the evaluation (see below). Another idea would have been to defer caching until the first non-null value has been met. But this might cause troubles in createCell() when there is a handing depending on the type. from JXLHelper.java: /** * Gets the cell type for a cell. Tries to look it up in a cache based on the * component id of the cell. If it's not found, it's created and cached. * * @param uiCell The cell to look up * @return The data type of a cell */ private CellType getCellDataType(UICell uiCell) { if (log.isTraceEnabled()) { log.trace("Getting cell data type from cache for #0", uiCell.getId()); } CellType cellDataType = cellInfoCache.getCachedCellType(uiCell.getId()); if (cellDataType == null) { /* old code: cellDataType = uiCell.getDataType(); */ /* new code start */ CellStyle cellStyle = new CellStyle(parser.getCascadedStyleMap(uiCell)); cellDataType = cellStyle.forceType != null ? CellType .valueOf(cellStyle.forceType) : uiCell.getDataType(); /* new code end */ cellInfoCache.setCachedCellType(uiCell.getId(), cellDataType); } return cellDataType; }