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Handling XPLN data

XPLN is the defacto tool to create schedules and printed media for module meetings. It is developed based on OpenOffice Calc, with scripting and forms. Because it lacks the data integrity of a real database, it requires users to follow a strict workflow to not end up with inconsistent data.

Reading XPLN data

Because data is stored in worksheet in a understandable format, it is possible to let software read out the XPLN data. I have built such software that reads out all possible data; stations, trains, loco turnus and duties etc.

When reading the XPLN-data an building into a model in memory, I made the following experineces:

  • Almost every XPLN-document suffers from inconsistent data, which makes further reading impossible until the XPLN-document has been correctred.
  • Valid but unreasonable data, for example two trains scheduled at the same time on the same single-track stretch, or to fast/slow running times between stations.

Reading XPLN-documents

XPLN documents have the file type .ODS, which stands for Open Document Spreadsheet. The content of an .ODS-file is a rather complex XML. Reading the raw XML is therefore out of the question and no suitable free NuGet.package exist for reading .ODS-files.

However, reading .ODS-files is supported if you have Microsoft Excel installed. Using COM-interop it is fairly easy to open and manipulate Excel-files programmatically from a .NET application. It is possible to open an .ODS-file with Excel, and then read its content. And thats the current approach.

There also exists solutions to read Excel-files not having Excel installed, using a free NuGet package DocumentFormat.OpenXml. But this is more tricky, so this approach will be considered to use in a cloud solution, where it is not possible to depend on COM-interop with Microsoft Excel.

I finally found an old piece of C# code to read .ODS-files without Excel and COM-imterop. This was tested on a large number of XPLN-files an refined to read all data correct. This solution can also run in the cloud. Try it out by uploading you XPLN-file and get a validation report.