sheet.nrows has a wrong value - python excel file

Question

I got a really strange problem. I'm trying to read some data from an excel file, but the property nrows has a wrong value. Although my file has a lot of rows, it just returns 2.

I'm working in pydev eclipse. I don't know what is actually the problem; everything looks fine.

When I try to access other rows by index manually, but I got the index error.

I appreciate any help.

If it helps, it's my code:

def get_data_form_excel(address):
    wb = xlrd.open_workbook(address)
    profile_data_list = []
    for s in wb.sheets():
        for row in range(s.nrows):
            if row > 0:
                values = []
                for column in range(s.ncols):
                    values.append(str(s.cell(row, column).value))
                profile_data_list.append(values)
    print str(profile_data_list)
    return profile_data_list

Answer 1

After trying some other files I'm sure it's about the file, and I think it's related to Microsoft 2003 and 2007 differences.

Answer 2

To make sure your file is not corrupt, try with another file; I doubt xlrd is buggy.

Also, I've cleaned up your code to look a bit nicer. For example the if row > 0 check is unneeded because you can just iterate over range(1, sheet.nrows) in the first place.

def get_data_form_excel(address):
    # this returns a generator not a list; you can iterate over it as normal,
    # but if you need a list, convert the return value to one using list()
    for sheet in xlrd.open_workbook(address).sheets():
        for row in range(1, sheet.nrows):
            yield [str(sheet.cell(row, col).value) for col in range(sheet.ncols)]

or

def get_data_form_excel(address):
    # you can make this function also use a (lazily evaluated) generator instead
    # of a list by changing the brackets to normal parentheses.
    return [
        [str(sheet.cell(row, col).value) for col in range(sheet.ncols)]
        for sheet in xlrd.open_workbook(address).sheets()
        for row in range(1, sheet.nrows)
    ]

Answer 3

I recently got this problem too. I'm trying to read an excel file and the row number given by xlrd.nrows is less than the actual one. As Zeinab Abbasi saied, I tried other files but it worked fine.

Finally, I find out the difference : there's a VB-script based button embedded in the failed file, which is used to download and append records to the current sheet.

Then, I try to convert the file to .xlsx format, but it asks me to save as another format with macro enabled, e.g .xlsm. This time xlrd.nrows gives the correct value.

Answer 4

Is your excel file using external data? I just had the same problem and found a fix. I was using excel to get info from a google sheet, and I wanted to have python show me that data. So, the fix for me was going to DATA>Connections(in "Get External Data")>Properties and unchecking "Remove data from the external data range before saving the workbook"