The Microsoft Excel File Format - OpenOffice.org

4 Worksheet/Workbook Stream
4.7.5 Finding Row Blocks in a Worksheet
Sometimes it may be useful to jump directly to a specific cell in the Worksheet Stream or Sheet Substream. The first step
is to find the Row Block which contains the cell. How to find a cell inside the Row Block is described in ➜4.7.4.
The INDEX record (➜5.59) stores the index to the first used row and stream offsets for each Row Block in the sheet.
• Finding Row Blocks in BIFF2-BIFF4
In BIFF2-BIFF4 the INDEX record contains an array with the stream positions of the first ROW record of each Row
Block. This array contains also positions for empty Row Blocks. In this case the position of the next extant Row Block is
used.
Example: A worksheet contains data in the rows 2, 4, 65, and 100. The range of used rows in the INDEX record
is 2…101 (last used row + 1). There are 4 Row Blocks in the sheet: 2…33, 34…65, 66…97, and 98…130. The
third Row Block is empty.
0000 H BOF Type = worksheet
Sheet records
002E H INDEX Row range = 2…101
Offsets = 049A H , 04DE H , 0500 H , 0500 H
Sheet records
049A H ROW Row = 2
04AE H ROW Row = 4
04DE H ROW Row = 65
0500 H ROW Row = 100
EOF
Cell records for this Row Block
Cell records for this Row Block
Cell records for this Row Block
Sheet records
Because the third Row Block is empty, the third offset in the INDEX record array points to the fourth Row Block.
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