12.1p: XLS and OOXML export file of exportData() broken for empty resultsets

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

please filter the ListGrid in this sample (v12.1p_2022-10-22) for "TEST" (=no result) and try exporting as XLS and OOXML. The resulting files can't be opened in current Excel (Version 2209 Build 16.0.15629.20196) 32 Bit and LibreOffice 7.3.6.2 (x64).
If I try to export an empty dataset with clientside export, I get a warning, which is OK for clientside.

While this is of course minor, I don't think it should be this way. Especially as your serverside exports might be created with background jobs and the resulting files then being sent somewhere.

Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

This seems to be working in our environment, specifically the empty result set is exported into an empty export file, which we were able to open using Apple Numbers 12.1 and OpenOffice Calc 4.1.10. How exactly exported files cannot be opened in your applications, do they report some kind of error? Also, just in case we do something differently, can you please post the actual exported file that your are getting? Thank you.

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

of course. You can find the files here. While I'm sure that I could not open them in LibreOffice two days ago, it seems to work with today's export.
This is what I see when I try to open them with the mentioned Excel version:



But also in LibreOffice, where it now opens without problems, the file does not have a 1st column with column headers like the CSV export has.

Best regards
Blama

[Isomorphic]

We are planning to make changes so that the header is present in Excel export files with no data. This would also solve the opening files problem. Meanwhile you may manually report an error from the server to avoid getting the "broken" export file.

[Isomorphic]

This is fixed now and available for download in latest nightly builds. Now we are exporting headers even if there's no data, so the export file will be always valid.

[Isomorphic]

Apologies, for the 12.1 version these fixes will be available for download since Feb 2 (tomorrow).

[Blama]

Posted on wrong thread.

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

I can see this is fixed now using v12.1p_2023-02-02.
I did notice though that the export fieldnames for the more technical formats like JSON and XML are the technical field names. I do think this is OK.
This also applies to CSV, where I'm not sure it should be this way. But this is very minor and not important for me. Also a change here might affect further automatic processing down the line.

Thank you & Best regards
Blama