This is a sample Android application to show how
Apache POI can be used on Android.
It consists of two projects:
poishadow: A small helper project to produce
a shaded jar-file for Apache POI which includes
all necessary dependencies and fixes a few things
that usually hinder you deploying Apache POI on
Android
poitest: A very small sample Android application
which performs some actions on an XLSX-file using
Apache POI. See DocumentListActivity for the actual
code
Getting started
Necessary System-Properties
In order to work around problems with finding a suitable XML Parser, currently
the following system properties need to be set manually during startup of your
application (let me know if you know of a better way to do this, see issue #10)
System.setProperty("org.apache.poi.javax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory", "com.fasterxml.aalto.stax.InputFactoryImpl");
System.setProperty("org.apache.poi.javax.xml.stream.XMLOutputFactory", "com.fasterxml.aalto.stax.OutputFactoryImpl");
System.setProperty("org.apache.poi.javax.xml.stream.XMLEventFactory", "com.fasterxml.aalto.stax.EventFactoryImpl");
Supported Android versions
The sample project uses API level 15, which maps to Android 4.0.3. Theoretically lower versions should work
as well, but we do not test these to avoid this additional effort.
Dependencies
Note: The dependencies of Apache POI are not included in the shading to keep it's size at bay. If you use code
areas which require commons-codec, commons-collections4 or any of the other dependencies, you will need to define
them in your Android application in addition to the poishadow-all.jar file dependency.
Use a pre-built jar
If you want to get started quickly, there is a ready-made jar-file available in the
release section.
You should be able to simply add this to your Android project and use the Apache POI
classes from it.
Build the jar yourself
If you would like to change how the jar-file is built, e.g. if you need classes that
are excluded, use a different version of POI or would like to adjust the build in some
other way, you can build the shaded jar with the following steps:
Preparation:
You will need the following pieces in order to get started
A recent Java SDK, preferably Java 8
An installation of the Android SDK, either the one included
with Android Studio or a separate download, see
https://developer.android.com/studio/index.html#downloads
Get the code:
git clone git://github.com/centic9/poi-on-android
cd poi-on-android
Configure where your Android SDK resides:
echo "sdk.dir=/opt/android-sdk-linux" > local.properties
Configure the version of the Android Build Tools that you have installed.
vi poitest/build.gradle
Then build the shadow-jar, for some reason this works better if executed separately:
./gradlew shadowJar
Finally run the build and some testing. Make sure you have a device connected, e.g. the Android emulator.
./gradlew build connectedCheck
For only the jar-files run just build
Support this project
If you find this tool useful and would like to support it, you can Sponsor the author
Run the Android emulator
List available emulators
/tools/emulator -list-avds
Start an Android emulator
/tools/emulator -avd
Install the apk
/platform-tools/adb install ./poitest/build/outputs/apk/poitest-debug.apk
Notes
You can use the resulting jar-file poishadow/build/libs/poishadow-all.jar
in your own project, the code in directory poitest is
just a small sample Android application to show that it works.
This was only tested in Android Studio with the Android
emulator until now, should work on real Android as well, though!
Tested with targetSdkVersion 25 and minSdkVersion 15,
although other versions should work as long as they support
multiDexEnabled true
Todo
Add more actual functionality to the sample application,
currently it just creates a new spreadsheet, adds some data
then stores it in the Application storage area and reads it
again from there.
Links
Licensing
Copyright 2015-2018 Dominik Stadler
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.