Question Making use of embedded excel?

[hickoz_bro]

Hi there,

I'm currently trying to make a small app for work, but i've got no experience with VB.net at all, i've been fumbling my way though it so far, but there's still a LONG way to go. I've searched till my fingers bled, but so far not a great deal out there is helpful.

My current issue is accessing an excel (2007) file i've embedded into resources. I can open the file from the hard drive via "c:/folder/file.xlsx" but i can't open it via "my.resources.file" the error i get is :

Value of type '1-dimensional array of Byte' cannot be converted to 'String'.

I'm really struggling to make sense of this one. Anyone able to help out?

 

[JohnH]

Save the resource to file system (temporarily), then "open" it...

 

[hickoz_bro]

what do you mean by save it to the file system? is that a .net thing i don't know about? or do you literally mean save it to "c:\windows\temp" or something like that? 'cause that kinda makes sense i suppose... trouble is that i want to be able to write info to the embedded file too, is that possible? could i save to a temp file, write to it, then "re-embed" the file so to speak? or would i need to leave the file external to do that?

Is saving the file to a temp location the "correct" way of doing it? or is that just a solution for beginners?

Cheers

 

[JohnH]

do you literally mean save it

Yes.

write info to the embedded file too, is that possible?

No, it is not.

 

[hickoz_bro]

so in that case i'll need to keep it external then?

thanks for the tips... will look into it more

 

[cjard]

can I ask why youre using an excel file for this purpose?

 

[hickoz_bro]

The idea is to keep the data easily readable by human (formatted with cell shading etc) and readable by the program. Access i've always found a b**ch to read, not very presentable.