Reading multiple excel sheets with different worksheet names

Question

I would like to know how I can read multiple excel worksheet with different worksheet name in c# and with the used of oledb.

I have this existing way to read multiple sheets (but with fixed worksheet name):

DataSet ds = new DataSet();
var excelConnectionString = string.Format("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source={0};Extended Properties=Excel 8.0", path); 
OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection();
connection.ConnectionString = excelConnectionString;

var i = 1;
while (i <= 4)
{
    string query = "SELECT * FROM [Sheet" + i + "$]";
    ds.Clear();
    OleDbDataAdapter data = new OleDbDataAdapter(query, connection);
    data.Fill(ds);

    // other stuff
    i = i + 1;
}

This one works. But I'm now in different situation wherein the worksheets names are not fixed, example: Sheet1 is Dog, Sheet2 is Cat Sheet3 is Bird.

Now my concern is how I can loop on those worksheet names with the use of my existing code.

Answer 1

This is from VB.net but not sure how well it translates, returns a list of strings containing all sheet names:

OleDbConnection.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, New Object() {Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, "TABLE"})

MSDN Link

Once you have a list of sheet names you can do a simple For Each loop to iterate.

Edit:

This should work in C#

Add function

static DataTable GetSchemaTable(string connectionString)
{
    using (OleDbConnection connection = new 
               OleDbConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        DataTable schemaTable = connection.GetOleDbSchemaTable(
            OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables,
            new object[] { null, null, null, "TABLE" });
        return schemaTable;
    }
}

Your code would change to:

DataSet ds = new DataSet();
var excelConnectionString = string.Format("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source={0};Extended Properties=Excel 8.0", path); 
OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection();
connection.ConnectionString = excelConnectionString;

DataTable sheets = GetSchemaTable(excelConnectionString);

foreach (dataRow r in sheets.rows)
{
    string query = "SELECT * FROM [" + r.Item(0).ToString + "]";
    ds.Clear();
    OleDbDataAdapter data = new OleDbDataAdapter(query, connection);
    data.Fill(ds);

}

Just be sure to do something with ds after each iteration.