Find column number by StringCellValue

[jake demus]

hi there,
i'm tryin to read just 2 particular columns from an excel sheet and write them to a txt file.
My problem is i have the cellNum hardcoded here (cell.getCellNum()==0) which works but these columns may be in different places depending on the sheet.
The column i'm tryin to find has a StringCellValue of "Rule ID" but i don't want this String to write to the txt file.
Hope i've been sort of clear.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Iterator;

import javax.swing.JFileChooser;

import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFCell;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFRow;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFSheet;
import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
import org.apache.poi.poifs.filesystem.POIFSFileSystem;

public class Read {
@SuppressWarnings ("unchecked")
	public void ExcelOutputToTxtFile(){
	{
    	File folder = new File("ExcelOutputToTxtFile");
		folder.mkdir();
		File file = new File("ExcelOutputToTxtFile/Output.txt");
    	JFileChooser chooser = new JFileChooser();
    	File fileChoice = new File("");
    	
    	int returnVal = chooser.showOpenDialog(null);
    	if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION)
    		fileChoice = chooser.getSelectedFile();
    	else 
    		System.exit(0);
	    	
	    try
	 	{
			POIFSFileSystem fileSystem = new POIFSFileSystem(new FileInputStream(fileChoice));
			HSSFWorkbook workBook = new HSSFWorkbook(fileSystem);
			
			int numSheets = workBook.getNumberOfSheets();
            for(int i = 0; i < numSheets; i++) {
            	HSSFSheet sheet = workBook.getSheetAt(i);
            	Iterator<HSSFRow> rows = sheet.rowIterator();
			
				while (rows.hasNext())
				{
					HSSFRow row = rows.next();
					Iterator<HSSFCell> cells = row.cellIterator();
	
					while (cells.hasNext())
					{
						HSSFCell cell = cells.next();
						
						if (cell.getCellType()== HSSFCell.CELL_TYPE_STRING){
							if (cell.getCellNum()==0 && !cell.getStringCellValue().equals("Rule ID")){
								FileWriter fstream = new FileWriter(file,true);
								BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(fstream);
								out.write(cell.getStringCellValue() + "=");
								out.close();							  
							}
								    
							else if (cell.getCellNum()==6 && !cell.getStringCellValue().equals("Description")){
								FileWriter fstream = new FileWriter(file,true);
								BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(fstream);
								out.write(cell.getStringCellValue());
								out.newLine();
								out.close();
							}
						}
					}
				}
            }
		} catch (IOException e){
			e.printStackTrace ();
		}
	}
}
		public static void main(String[] args) {
			Read read = new Read();
			read.ExcelOutputToTxtFile(); 	
		}
}

[Martijn Verburg]

Hi Jake and welcome to Javaranch! What library are you using? POI?

[jake demus]

Thanks for the reply.
Ya it's POI.
The sheets were created in Excel 2003.