Trying to read an Excel file file stream in C#, I get numbers instead of text

Question

I'm trying to use DocumentFormat.OpenXml to read an uploaded Excel file. When I get the file (HttpPosteFileWrapper) I'm simply trying to read the cells and write them to a text string. (Later I will do more, but I'm just trying to get used to OpenXml right now.)

My data in Excel looks something like this:

Field1 - Field2 - Phone - City
IT Department - Emp - 7175551234 - Springfield
HR - Emp - 7175556543 - W Springfield

Code looks like this:

var doc = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(file.InputStream, false);
WorkbookPart workbookPart = doc.WorkbookPart;
WorksheetPart worksheetPart = workbookPart.WorksheetParts.First();
SheetData thisSheet = worksheetPart.Worksheet.Elements<SheetData>().First();
System.Text.StringBuilder text = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
foreach (Row r in thisSheet.Elements<Row>())
{
    foreach (Cell c in r.Elements<Cell>())
    {
        text.Append(c.CellValue.Text + ",");
    }
    text.AppendLine();
}

And the string it creates looks like this:

49,51,50,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,16,14,15,17,18,19,20,21,22,40,41,42,43,44,45,54,\r\n
52,24,23,25,26,27,7306,33,28,29,30,31,17033,32,34,7175555555,7175551234,7175554321,7175550000,35,36,37,36526,40179,38,39,30,31,17033,32,55,\r\n
53,46,47,48,555,\r\n

It seems like the numeric values come through. Is it because I'm using the wrong stream type?

Edit: I've updated my code to now look like this, but it still doesn't work right. There seems to be no way for me to see the text data.

public ActionResult ProfileImport(IEnumerable<HttpPostedFileBase> files)
{
    // Build file list
    int i = 1;
    foreach (var file in files)
    {
        if (file.ContentLength > 0)
        {

var doc = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(file.InputStream, false);
WorkbookPart workbookPart = doc.WorkbookPart;
WorksheetPart worksheetPart = workbookPart.WorksheetParts.First();
SheetData thisSheet = worksheetPart.Worksheet.Elements<SheetData>().First();
System.Text.StringBuilder text = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
foreach (Row r in thisSheet.Elements<Row>())
{
    foreach (Cell c in r.Elements<Cell>())
    {
        string value = c.InnerText;
        if (c.DataType != null && c.DataType.Value == CellValues.SharedString) // Check DataType exists
        {
            var stringTable = workbookPart.GetPartsOfType<SharedStringTablePart>()
                .FirstOrDefault(); // Get Table parts from workbookPart
            if (stringTable != null)
                value = stringTable.SharedStringTable.ElementAt(int.Parse(value)).InnerText;
            text.Append(value + ",");
        }
        else
            text.Append(value + ",");
     }
     text.AppendLine();
 }
 var outText = text.ToString();
}
}
}

Actual data from 1st row of the file:
AddressDescription, Address1, Address2, City, State, PostalCode, CountryCode, Email, CellPhone, HomePhone, WorkPhone, Fax, OrganizationName, Department, Position, StartDate, EndDate, OrganizationAddress1, OrganizationAddress2 OrganizationCity, OrganizationState, OrganizationPostalCode, OrganizationCountryCode, Keywords

Row.InnerText of that row:
"49515001234567891011121316141517181920212240414243444554"

Row.OuterXml:

"<x:row r=\"1\" spans=\"1:33\" s=\"3\" customFormat=\"1\" x14ac:dyDescent=\"0.25\" xmlns:x14ac=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2009/9/ac\" xmlns:x=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main\">
    <x:c r=\"A1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>49</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"B1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>51</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"C1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>50</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"D1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>0</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"E1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>1</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"F1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>2</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"G1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>3</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"H1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>4</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"I1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>5</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"J1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>6</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"K1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>7</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"L1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>8</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"M1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>9</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"N1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>10</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"O1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>11</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"P1\" s=\"4\" t=\"s\"><x:v>12</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"Q1\" s=\"4\" t=\"s\"><x:v>13</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"R1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>16</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"S1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>14</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"T1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>15</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"U1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>17</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"V1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>18</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"W1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>19</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"X1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>20</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"Y1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>21</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"Z1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>22</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AA1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>40</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AB1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>41</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AC1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>42</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AD1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>43</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AE1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>44</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AF1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>45</x:v></x:c>
    <x:c r=\"AG1\" s=\"3\" t=\"s\"><x:v>54</x:v></x:c>
</x:row>"

Answer 1

It looks like these are indices to the strings in the Shared Strings table. In Excel file formats, string data is stored in a shared strings table, which is then references on the cell level. Per the documentation, CellValue returns an index to the StringTable if the data type is text.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/documentformat.openxml.spreadsheet.cellvalue%28v=office.14%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Not knowing more about the type of data that's in your cells (there are different ways to retrieve it based on the data type). If it's what I think it is, it'll be a SharedString, which you will need to retrieve as a SharedStringTablePart, as shown in this MSDN page:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh298534%28v=office.14%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Your code would look something like this:

foreach (Cell c in r.Elements<Cell>())
{
    string value = c.InnerText;
    if (c.DataType.Value == CellValues.SharedString)
    {
        var stringTable = workbookPart.GetPartsOfType<SharedStringTablePart>()
            .FirstOrDefault();
        if (stringTable != null)
            value = stringTable.SharedStringTable.ElementAt(int.Parse(value)).InnerText;
        text.Append(value + ",");
    }
    else
        text.Append(value + ",");
    text.AppendLine();
}

Answer 2

I Have the same problem and found the solution, you just need to add this method, you will get the exact text that you need, not the numbers:

        private string ReadExcelCell(Cell cell, WorkbookPart workbookPart)
        {
            var cellValue = cell.CellValue;
            var text = (cellValue == null) ? cell.InnerText : cellValue.Text;
            if ((cell.DataType != null) && (cell.DataType == CellValues.SharedString))
            {
                text = workbookPart.SharedStringTablePart.SharedStringTable
                    .Elements<SharedStringItem>().ElementAt(
                        Convert.ToInt32(cell.CellValue.Text)).InnerText;
            }
            return (text ?? string.Empty).Trim();
        }