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Writing into a file

medini_1024169437

I was recently asked how to write some results from a script into a file on the file system. Most examples for that problem for Java Script that can be found in the net, are targeting script engines that run in a browser. They will not work in medini. See also the article "Using Script to output a txt, csv, xml, or xlsx file" that was opened by Tony a while back.

So fortunately - as mentioned there - we can script Java in medini so can utilize the complete Java API which, beside other things, has full access to the file system.

The simples function that takes a string and writes it to a dedicated text file looks like this:

/*
 * Helper to store the text into a file using the *default* character encoding.
 */
function writeToFile(text, fileName) {
	var file = new java.io.File(fileName);
	var writer = new java.io.FileWriter(file);
	writer.write(text);
	writer.close();
}

Note that Java has capabilities to define the file character encoding which we don't use in this example. So the default platform encoding is used.

Happy Scripting

Jan

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medini_1026949627

I used this script in order to export general project data I had added to the profile

/*
* v2019-01-16 - initial version
*
* This script exemplary extracts information from a selected project
* and exports it as "comma separated list" (CSV) to the Workspace.
*/

var NL = "\n"; // newline character
var SEP = ";"; // separator
var PrFilePath = __filedir;
var WorkSpace = PrFilePath.substring(0, PrFilePath.length-14);
var text = "" //headline; // text to export
/*
* Handle each element. You may extract arbitrary attributes (element is of type
* SysMLElement)
*/
function handleElement(element) {
text += "Project No.";
text += SEP;
text += element.ID_project_no || "";
text += NL;
text += "Project Name";
text += SEP;
text += element.ID_project_name || "";
text += NL;
text += "Product Group";
text += SEP;
text += element.ID_product_group || "";
text += NL;

}

/*
* Main function doing the "main" job.
*/
function main() {
handleElement(finder.project);
// copyToClipboard(text); //use this function to copy the data to the clipboard
writeToFile(text, WorkSpace+"project.csv"); //D:\\Analyze workspace\\Training\\
return "Project data was extracted and put into " + WorkSpace + "project.csv";
}

/*
* Helper to store the text into a file using the *default* character encoding.
*/
function writeToFile(text, fileName) {
var file = new java.io.File(fileName);
var writer = new java.io.FileWriter(file);
writer.write(text);
writer.close();
}

// do it!
main();

After executing the script a project.csv file is stored in the project folder in workspace.

This work very well and the exported data can be reused in other applications like WORD.

Jan, thank you for your support!

Regards

Günter

medini_1024169437

Thanks Günter for posting this usage example, that great!

Jan

medini_1028110424

Hi Günter and Jan,

Great job, this is super helpful - have either of you tried to expand this a bit, using the excel.js suite (in a separate form) to write some of this information into specific cells? Say, row 2 column 2?

Thanks,

Tony

medini_1024169437

Tony,

a while ago I added a comment and an update to the "Excel.js" article. The comment said that "its now possible to express that an Excel file can be opened for writing". With that feature it is possible to achieve what you are seeking for I think.

Note that the "Callback" API is still something that is designed for reading Excel fies so it was a bit contrary to the API style but I achieved a sample application that writes parts and some attributes to an Excel. Please find it attached. Note that at minimum the "excel.js" library is required.

Feel free to use and extend.

Happy Scripting

Jan

medini_1040753747

Jan,

Is there a way to delete or add sheets in an existing Excel workbook? Thx for your support with regards to this.

Johan

medini_1024169437

Hm, I think even that should be feasible. There is a callback "afterOpen" that can be used.

	afterOpen : function(document) {
		// navigate from document to workbook
		var wb = document.workbook;
		// we can create or copy worksheets
		var ws1 = wb.createWorksheet("New name");
		var ws2 = wb.copyWorksheet("Other Name", ws1);
	},

Happy Scripting

Jan

medini_1040753747

I got the createWorksheet() to work. What about a function to delete a worksheet?

From my previous request, I guess I meant I was looking for "delete AND add sheets" not "OR" haha.

medini_1024169437

Johan, you can simply call delete(9 on the worksheet, so for example:

ws1.delete();

Please be aware of the implications: document must be opened read-only (clear)

and any access to the worksheet or it rows after that doe snot work.

If you want to clear the worksheet (remove rows) there are other means.

Jan

medini_1040753747

Is it possible to generate a new excel workbook file and then write to that? Or we can only write to existing excel files?

medini_1024169437

Hi Johan,

at the moment it is only possible to open existing files. To achieve your goal, you would have to

copy an empty template file from somewhere first to your target location so it looks like you

have created it.

Happy Scripting

Jan

medini_1055031935

Hey Johan,

I am not sure if this is still relevant for you or not but I managed to create new Excel-Sheets by calling a simple Powershellscript.

My Powershell Script, saved as createExcel.ps1:

$file=$args[0]
$excel = New-Object -ComObject "Excel.Application"
$wb = $excel.Workbooks.Add()
$ws = $wb.ActiveSheet
$excel.Visible = $True

$wb.SaveAs($file)
$wb.Close()
$excel.Quit()
echo("Created File:")
echo($file)

And the correspondiong JavaScript / "Java" code:

function createExcelFile() {
	var projectPath = __filedir;
	var powerShellScriptPath = projectPath + "\\PowerShell\\createExcel.ps1";
	var excelPath = projectPath.substring(0, projectPath.length -15) + "\\docs\\report.xlsx";

	var command = "powershell.exe -File \"{0}\" \"{1}\" ".format(powerShellScriptPath, excelPath);
	command = new java.lang.String(command);
	var process = java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);	

	var reader = process.getOutputStream().close();

	console.log("STD OUT");
	var stdOut = new java.io.BufferedReader(new java.io.InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
	var line = java.lang.String();
	while ((line = stdOut.readLine()) != null) {
		console.log(line);
	}
	stdOut.close();

	console.log("STD ERR");
	var stdErr = new java.io.BufferedReader(new java.io.InputStreamReader(process.getErrorStream()));
	while ((line = stdErr.readLine()) != null) {
		console.log(line);
	}
	stdErr.close();
}

I think you need to have excel installed in order to do this, but it works for me so far.

The only downsight, in my opinion, is that Medini isn't picking up documents in the project_path/docs folder on it's own and therfore it is not displayed in the Model Browser.
Any suggestions on how to do so will be gladly accepted by me.

Best regards

Flo

medini_1024169437

Flo, there are ways to import a generated excel into the"docs" folder, maybe you open another thread for this.

Jan

medini_1040753747

Thx a lot Flo! I deleted my previous comment with the error I was getting. It works just fine when I save to Desktop :-) I was trying to write to a directory that must have been protected.

medini_1055031935

Hey Johna,

please take into consideration that this Powershellscript will always open an excel document and save it. This can be visible as I am using excel itself to create a new file and save it.
Yet there are other ways to create an excel file, like pyhton or even java might have a library, where you do not see the actual process.
With the possibility to execute powershell scripts you can use any other language you want and simply start your script through powershell. My code is more like a proof of concept and a quick hack rather than a full blown solution.

medini_1040753747

Yes, the part on how to run the PowerShell command from javascript was the real highlight! I was interested in how to access command line from medini as well, so thanks for your example.

medini_1059007410

Hi,

my version of simply writing into a file, but with UTF8 character encoding:

/*
 * Helper to store the text into a file using UTF8 character encoding.
 */
function writeToFileUTF8(text, fileName) {
 //Getting the Path object
 var path = java.nio.file.Paths.get(fileName);
 //Creating a BufferedWriter object
 var writer = java.nio.file.Files.newBufferedWriter(path, java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
 //Appending the UTF-8 String to the file
 writer.append(text);
 //Flushing data to the file
 writer.flush();
}

Happy Scripting,

Nils