rubyXL
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weshatheleopard
Convenience method for accessing individual merged cells, rather than just a reference
Merged cells are a little bit of a red herring. Sometimes you want to access the actual cells rather than the reference/the MergedCell's. For example to obtain indivual borders for each of the cells in the merge. Which is required to be able to obtain the exact borders.
In doing this work, I have found the following method useful. It may be a desirable inclusion in the library, probably under a more sophisticated form.
def merged_cells(cell)
return nil unless cell.worksheet.merged_cells
cell.worksheet.merged_cells.each { |mcell|
if mcell.ref.first_row == cell.row && mcell.ref.first_col == cell.column
return mcell.ref.row_range.collect { |row|
mcell.ref.col_range.collect { |col|
cell.worksheet[row][col]
}
}
end
}
nil
end
Here's a more elaborate version.
module RubyXL
module CellConvenienceMethods
def borders
merged_cells.flat_map { |cell|
[:top, :left, :right, :bottom].filter_map { |direction|
direction if cell.get_border(direction)
}
}.uniq
end
def merged_cells
worksheet.merged_cells.each { |mcell|
row_range, col_range = mcell.ref.row_range, mcell.ref.col_range
if row_range.begin == self.row && col_range.begin == self.column
return row_range.flat_map { |r| col_range.map { |c| worksheet[r][c] } }
end
} if worksheet.merged_cells
[self]
end
end
end
Something like sheet.merged_cell_at([row, col]) since we don't want to change any behavior of [][] access giving normal cells for even merged ones. This can return MergedCell.ref() would give us access to the range variables.
sheet = parsed_file[0]
sheet.merged_cell_at([5, 3])
sheet.merged_cell_at(RubyXL::Reference.ref2ind('A1')) # why I'm thinking of array input
Possibly having merged cells also support .value would be nice as well (at the moment I access the first cell and .value on that). Other properties like border (what OP is mentioning), fill, alignment and other things I can directly access would be nice to haves similar to the current Cell API.
@harsh183 So you are saying that for given (X,Y) you want to know the (X1....X2, Y1.....Y2) of the merged cell, of which the cell (X,Y) is a part of?
Yeah that works, and being able to get/set properties of the entire merged cell.
Yeah that works, and being able to get/set properties of the entire merged cell.
Some properties are not set at the global merged cell level, but at the level of the individual cells which are merged. Borders are one example. The API should allow support for that.
@caramdache precisely, so use your chance, go ahead and propose an API!
@caramdache do you mean something like merged_cell.first_cell or maybe some iterator that gives all the individual cells that are part of a given merged cell for those you can't set at a global merged cell level?
And the rest can have a merged cell level set for things that can be like content?
For my project I'm just looking for merged_cell_at(x,y) but this is a part of the gem that can really be expanded on in interesting directions I feel.
@harsh183 I meant an iterator that provides the individual cells that are part of a merge range.
@weshatheleopard my use case was to be able to obtain the borders of a group of merged cells. The borders are defined for each individual cell, hence the need for an iterator to obtain these cells.