# Data Model of excelExporter for StringTemplate V4 templates

# excelExporter - Rendering Excel Spreadsheets as Text

See: Description

Packages
Package | Description
--- | ---
excelExporter.excelParser |
excelExporter.excelParser.dataModel | Package dataModel is the set of nested classes, which form the two objects, Cluster and Info Info, which are passed in to the StringTemplate V4 template engine as attributes of the root template.

# excelExporter - Rendering Excel Spreadsheets as Text

This Javadoc describes the data model of excelExporter, an application that can translate the information found in one or more Excel workbooks into manifold textual representations. excelExporter is a general purpose text rendering application for Excel spreadsheets.

The principal aim of the tool is supporting automation tasks in software development environments. In the context of the comFramework project, to which it belongs, this targets the handling of data dictionaries and interfaces but excelExporter is by design independent from this intended purpose and will be useful for various other automation tasks.

You can render the information in the Excel input for example as:

- HTML or LaTeX for reporting and documentation
- Various XML formats for interfacing with other applications
- C/C++ or any other textual programming languages

Rendering Excel files basically is a two step process. First you specify a set of Excel input files. All of these are parsed and merged to one large data structure, ofter referred to as data model. Input files of same or of different format are supported. ("Format" refers to the structure of the Excel files with respect to contained sheets and columns.)

Secondary, you define a list of the output files to be generated. The specification of each output file is associated with the specification of a StringTemplate V4 template file. The template controls the output generation; different templates yield different output from the input. The template specifies how to embed pieces of information taken from the data model into literal text. In order to successfully design your templates you need to have a detailed understanding of the structure of the data model.

The data model is a Java object with fields and methods. Many fields are nested collections and data sub-structures. The "pieces of information", which can be placed into the output, are the values of the public fields and the return values of the public methods and all of these are well described by this Javadoc.

This Javadoc describes the data model in terms of field and method descriptions. The concept of the data model, an overview with UML diagrams and an explanation with examples how to access it from StringTemplate V4 templates can be found online in the Wiki page The Data Model of the excelExporter project.

An overview on the documentation available for the application excelExporter can be found online at Sourceforge.