What is the difference between below print statements where the cell holds a Numeric / String value?

Question

What is the difference between below print statements where the cell holds a Numeric / String value ? //trying the print the value from an excel cell

    Cell cell = row.getCell(0);
    System.out.println(cell);
    System.out.println(cell.getStringCellValue());
    System.out.println(cell.getNumericCellValue());

Answer 1

Cell cell = row.getCell(0);

---

System.out.println(cell);

This prints what cell.toString() returns. For example HSSFCell.toString:

public String toString() {
    switch (getCellTypeEnum()) {
        case BLANK:
            return "";
        case BOOLEAN:
            return getBooleanCellValue()?"TRUE":"FALSE";
        case ERROR:
            return ErrorEval.getText((( BoolErrRecord ) _record).getErrorValue());
        case FORMULA:
            return getCellFormula();
        case NUMERIC:
            //TODO apply the dataformat for this cell
            if (DateUtil.isCellDateFormatted(this)) {
                SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy", LocaleUtil.getUserLocale());
                sdf.setTimeZone(LocaleUtil.getUserTimeZone());
                return sdf.format(getDateCellValue());
            }
            return  String.valueOf(getNumericCellValue());
        case STRING:
            return getStringCellValue();
        default:
            return "Unknown Cell Type: " + getCellType();
    }
}

---

System.out.println(cell.getStringCellValue());

This will only work if the cell contains a text. Else it throws an exception. See Cell.getStringCellValue

---

System.out.println(cell.getNumericCellValue());

This will only work if the cell contains numeric content (number or date). Else it throws an exception. See Cell.getNumericCellValue

---

Better way is using DataFormatter.

DataFormatter formatter = new DataFormatter();
...
Cell cell = row.getCell(0);
String cellContent = formatter.formatCellValue(cell);
System.out.println(cellContent);

This works for all types of cell content since DataFormatter.formatCellValue returns the formatted value of the cell as a String regardless of the cell type.