Damaged file handling

Question

I would like to know if anyone has any advice on handling damaged files with Apache POI

I am trying to open a file and am receiving this message:

Exception in thread "main" org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordInputStream$LeftoverDataException: Initialisation of record 0x1C left 2 bytes remaining still to be read.     at org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordInputStream.hasNextRecord(RecordInputStream.java:156)     at org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordFactoryInputStream.nextRecord(RecordFactoryInputStream.java:231)     at org.apache.poi.hssf.record.RecordFactory.createRecords(RecordFactory.java:480)     at org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook.<init>(HSSFWorkbook.java:301)     at org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.WorkbookFactory.create(WorkbookFactory.java:95)     at ExcelImporter.EditFileImportDialog.main(EditFileImportDialog.java:409) 

Here is an SSCCE

import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.exceptions.InvalidFormatException; import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook; import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.WorkbookFactory;  public class EditFileImportDialog {      /* Omitted irrelevent code */      public static void main(String[] args) {         File file = new File("Z:\\Path\\To\\File_causing_the_trouble.xls");         try {             Workbook wb = WorkbookFactory.create(file);  // Line 409 for ref to the exception stack trace             System.out.println(wb);         } catch (InvalidFormatException e) {             e.printStackTrace();         } catch (IOException e) {             e.printStackTrace();         }     } } 

This happens with this file only, and the exception is not thrown if I open the file in excel and save it, then try to open it with POI. Any suggestion as to how I could handle this?

EDIT:

As a note, my issue may be related to this question, but upgrading POI did not fix my issue and there are dissimilarities with the described file. I have searched around for similar answers but perhaps if someone knows what's wrong with the excel file itself, I can write something to patch the file.

EDIT 2

The file creation is not in my control. Excel fixes the file itself just upon opening and re-saving it. My question though is whether anyone can think of a way to adjust/augment POI to handle this damaged file in the same way that excel is able to fix the issue.

EDIT 3

In response to several comments/answers:

My end goal would be to not use excel at all.

1. File is sent in.
2. Program runs.
3. Handles the error.
4. Processes data.

Answer 1

You could try using HSSFWorkbook to open .xls files.

You could use the following code to check how POI respond determining xls format.

private boolean isExcel(InputStream i) throws IOException { return (POIFSFileSystem.hasPOIFSHeader(i) || POIXMLDocument.hasOOXMLHeader(i)); } 

I would use :

InputStream input = new FileInputStream(fileName); 

Instead of :

File file = new File("Z:\\Path\\To\\File_causing_the_trouble.xls"); 

Did you check what is wrong with the cell 0x1C in your file ?