Sheets in .NET with Jurassic

Jurassic¹ is a JavaScript compiler for .NET, In contrast to other engines, Jurassic generates .NET bytecode.

SheetJS is a JavaScript library for reading and writing data from spreadsheets.

This demo uses Jurassic and SheetJS to read and write spreadsheets. We'll explore how to load SheetJS in the Jurassic engine, exchange binary data with a C# program, and process spreadsheets and structured data.

The "Integration Example" section includes a complete command-line tool for reading arbitrary workbooks and writing data to ODS (OpenDocument Spreadsheet) workbooks.

Telemetry

The dotnet command embeds telemetry.

The DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT environment variable should be set to 1.

"Platform Configuration" includes instructions for setting the environment variable on supported platforms.

Integration Details

The SheetJS "mini" script can be parsed and evaluated in a Jurassic engine instance.

Jurassic throws errors when processing the "full" script (xlsx.full.min.js):

Unhandled exception. Jurassic.JavaScriptException: Error: Maximum number of named properties reached.

The xlsx.mini.min.js script must be used!

The mini build has a number of limitations, as noted in the installation guide.

It is recommended to pass Base64 strings between C# code and the script engine.

Initialize Jurassic

A Jurassic.ScriptEngine object can be created in one line:

var engine = new Jurassic.ScriptEngine();

Jurassic does not expose the NodeJS global. It can be synthesized:

The goal is to run the following JavaScript code:

var global = (function(){ return this; }).call(null);

engine.Evaluate("var global = (function(){ return this; }).call(null);");

Load SheetJS Scripts

Jurassic engine objects support the ExecuteFile method for evaluating scripts:

/* read and evaluate the shim script */
engine.ExecuteFile("shim.min.js");
/* read and evaluate the main library */
engine.ExecuteFile("xlsx.mini.min.js");

To confirm the library is loaded, XLSX.version can be inspected:

Console.WriteLine("SheetJS version {0}", engine.Evaluate("XLSX.version"));

Reading Files

In C#, System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes reads file data into a byte[] byte array:

string filename = "pres.xlsx";
byte[] buf = File.ReadAllBytes(filename);

The bytes cannot be directly passed to Jurassic. Base64 strings are supported. An encoded Base64 string can be created with System.Convert.ToBase64String:

string b64 = System.Convert.ToBase64String(buf);

Jurassic.ScriptEngine#SetGlobalValue will assign the C# String to a global:

engine.SetGlobalValue("buf", b64);

The buf variable can be parsed from JS with the SheetJS read method²:

The following script will be evaluated:

var wb = XLSX.read(buf, {type:'base64'});

engine.Evaluate("var wb = XLSX.read(buf, {type:'base64'});");

wb is a SheetJS workbook object. The "SheetJS Data Model" section describes the object structure and the "API Reference" section describes various helper functions.

Writing Files

The SheetJS write method³ can write workbooks. The option type: "base64" instructs the library to generate Base64 strings. The bookType option⁴ controls the output file format.

The following expression will be evaluated:

XLSX.write(wb, {bookType: 'ods', type: 'base64'})

The result will be passed back to C# code.

string ods = engine.Evaluate("XLSX.write(wb, {bookType: 'ods', type: 'base64'})") as string;

ods is a Base64 string. System.Convert.FromBase64String can decode the string into a byte[] which can be written to file:

File.WriteAllBytes("SheetJSJurassic.ods", System.Convert.FromBase64String(ods));

Integration Example

Tested Deployments

This demo was tested in the following deployments:

Architecture	Jurassic	Date
darwin-x64	3.2.7	2024-06-15
darwin-arm	3.2.7	2024-06-15
win10-x64	3.2.7	2024-06-21
win11-arm	3.2.7	2024-07-14
linux-x64	3.2.7	2024-06-20
linux-arm	3.2.7	2024-06-20

Platform Configuration

0. Set the DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT environment variable to 1.

How to disable telemetry (click to hide)

Linux/MacOS

Add the following line to .profile, .bashrc and .zshrc:

(add to .profile , .bashrc , and .zshrc)

export DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1

Close and restart the Terminal to load the changes.

Windows

Type env in the search bar and select "Edit the system environment variables".

In the new window, click the "Environment Variables..." button.

In the new window, look for the "System variables" section and click "New..."

Set the "Variable name" to DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT and the value to 1.

Click "OK" in each window (3 windows) and restart your computer.

1. Install .NET

Installation Notes (click to show)

For macOS x64 and ARM64, install the dotnet-sdk Cask with Homebrew:

brew install --cask dotnet-sdk

For Steam Deck Holo and other Arch Linux x64 distributions, the dotnet-sdk and dotnet-runtime packages should be installed using pacman:

sudo pacman -Syu dotnet-sdk dotnet-runtime

https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/6.0 is the official source for Windows and ARM64 Linux versions.

2. Open a new Terminal window in macOS or PowerShell window in Windows.

Base Project

3. Create a new folder SheetJSJurassic and a new dotnet project:

mkdir SheetJSJurassic
cd SheetJSJurassic
dotnet new console
dotnet run

4. Add Jurassic using the NuGet tool:

dotnet add package Jurassic --version 3.2.7

To verify Jurassic is installed, replace Program.cs with the following:

Program.cs

var engine = new Jurassic.ScriptEngine();
Console.WriteLine("Hello {0}", engine.Evaluate("'Sheet' + 'JS'"));

After saving, run the program:

dotnet run

The terminal should display Hello SheetJS

Add SheetJS

5. Download the SheetJS mini script, shim script and test file. Move all three files to the project directory:

• xlsx.mini.min.js
• shim.min.js
• pres.xlsx

curl -LO https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-0.20.3/package/dist/shim.min.js
curl -LO https://cdn.sheetjs.com/xlsx-0.20.3/package/dist/xlsx.mini.min.js
curl -LO https://docs.sheetjs.com/pres.xlsx

6. Replace Program.cs with the following:

Program.cs

var engine = new Jurassic.ScriptEngine();
engine.Evaluate("var global = (function(){ return this; }).call(null);");
engine.Evaluate(File.ReadAllText("shim.min.js"));
engine.Evaluate(File.ReadAllText("xlsx.mini.min.js"));
Console.WriteLine("SheetJS version {0}", engine.Evaluate("XLSX.version"));

After saving, run the program:

dotnet run

The terminal should display SheetJS version 0.20.3

Read and Write Files

7. Replace Program.cs with the following:

Program.cs

var engine = new Jurassic.ScriptEngine();

/* Initialize Jurassic */
engine.Evaluate("var global = (function(){ return this; }).call(null);");

/* Load SheetJS Scripts */
engine.ExecuteFile("shim.min.js");
engine.ExecuteFile("xlsx.mini.min.js");
Console.WriteLine("SheetJS version {0}", engine.Evaluate("XLSX.version"));

/* Read and Parse File */
byte[] filedata = File.ReadAllBytes(args[0]);
string b64 = System.Convert.ToBase64String(filedata);
engine.SetGlobalValue("buf", b64);
engine.Evaluate("var wb = XLSX.read(buf, {type:'base64'});");

/* Print CSV of first worksheet*/
engine.Evaluate("var ws = wb.Sheets[wb.SheetNames[0]];");
object csv = engine.Evaluate("XLSX.utils.sheet_to_csv(ws)");
Console.Write(csv);

/* Generate XLSB file and save to SheetJSJurassic.ods */
string ods = engine.Evaluate("XLSX.write(wb, {bookType: 'ods', type: 'base64'})") as string;
File.WriteAllBytes("SheetJSJurassic.ods", System.Convert.FromBase64String(ods));

After saving, run the program and pass the test file name as an argument:

dotnet run pres.xlsx

If successful, the program will print the contents of the first sheet as CSV rows. It will also create SheetJSJurassic.ods, an OpenDocument spreadsheet that can be opened in Excel or another spreadsheet editor.

Running dotnet run without the filename argument will show an error:

Unhandled exception. System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array.
   at Program.<Main>$(String[] args) in C:\Users\Me\SheetJSJurassic\Program.cs:line 15

The command must be run with an argument specifying the name of the workbook:

dotnet run pres.xlsx

Footnotes

1. The project does not have a website. The library is hosted on NuGet. ↩

2. See read in "Reading Files" ↩

3. See write in "Writing Files" ↩

4. See "Supported Output Formats" in "Writing Files" for details on bookType ↩