The Microsoft Excel File Format - OpenOffice.org

4.7 Cell Table and Row Blocks
• Finding Cells in a Row Block (BIFF5-BIFF8)
In BIFF5-BIFF8 the DBCELL record (➜5.29) follows the cell records and contains exactly the stream offsets which the
ROW records would contain in BIFF2-BIFF4. In the DBCELL record this offset list is lead by an offset to the first
ROW record in this Row Block. This offset is a positive value, although it points backwards to an earlier stream
position. While no record would occur in BIFF2-BIFF4 for empty Row Blocks, in BIFF5-BIFF8 a DBCELL record is
written for each and every Row Block.
Example: A Row Block contains one cell per row in the rows 10, 11, and 12. Row 13 is not used, the height of
row 14 is changed (but it does not contain a cell). Row 15 contains a cell again. In this example, the first column
shows the absolute stream position of each record.
07B2 H ROW Row = 10 (Record size with header = 0014 H )
07C6 H ROW Row = 11
07DA H ROW Row = 12
07EE H ROW Row = 14 (no record for row 13)
0802 H ROW Row = 15
0816 H RK Address = A10
0824 H NUMBER Address = A11
0836 H RK Address = A12
0844 H NUMBER Address = A15
0856 H DBCELL Offset to first ROW record = 00A4 H
Offsets = 0050 H , 000E H , 0012 H , 000E H , 0000 H
The base position for the calculation of all cell record positions is the start of the second ROW record, 07C6 H . It
is calculated from the position of the DBCELL record (contained in the INDEX record, ➜4.7.5), the first offset
this DBCELL record contains, and the size of the first ROW record:
0856 H - 00A4 H + 0014 H = 07B2 H + 0014 H = 07C6 H .
The calculation of the cell record positions works equally to the example for BIFF2-BIFF4 above (using 07C6 H
as base stream position).
If the size of all cell records of a row exceeds FFFF H , the respective position in the DBCELL record will contain the
offset 0000 H . From this point on, the offsets cannot be used anymore to calculate stream positions.
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