qxls

Qxls is the name of one or more open-source software projects that provide programmatic access to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The common aim is to enable developers to read, modify, and create Excel workbooks without requiring Excel itself. Implementations typically support both the older binary format (.xls) and the newer Office Open XML format (.xlsx), with APIs designed to work across different programming languages or with language bindings.

Core features typically include reading and writing cells, iterating rows and columns, handling basic data types (numbers, text, dates, booleans), and optionally preserving simple formatting during import or export. Many qxls projects emphasize small memory footprints and the ability to stream data for large spreadsheets, rather than loading entire workbooks into memory. Some implementations offer rudimentary formula handling or retention, while others focus on straightforward data interchange without evaluating formulas.

History and usage: The term qxls has been used for multiple independent projects since the 2010s, with various forks and implementations developed by different communities. Use cases include data extraction from spreadsheets for analytics workflows, automated report generation, data conversion between Excel and other formats, and integration of spreadsheet data into applications that operate without a graphical user interface.

See also: Excel file formats, CSV, LibreOffice, Apache POI, OpenXML SDK.