what is POI api in java.?

Question

what poi api in java? what is the expansion of POI.what for it is used.please give the important details of POI.

Answer 1

The POI project consists of APIs for manipulating various file formats based upon Microsoft's OLE 2 Compound Document format using pure Java. In short, you can read and write MS Excel files using Java. Soon, you'll be able to read and write Word files using Java. POI is your Java Excel solution as well as your Java Word solution. However, we have a complete API for porting other OLE 2 Compound Document formats and welcome others to participate.

OLE 2 Compound Document Format based files include most Microsoft Office files such as XLS and DOC as well as MFC serialization API based file formats.

As a general policy we try to collaborate as much as possible with other projects to provide this functionality. Examples include: Cocoon for which there are serializers for HSSF; Open Office.org with whom we collaborate in documenting the XLS format; and Lucene for which we'll soon have file format interpretors. When practical, we donate components directly to those projects for POI-enabling them.

Why/when would I use POI?
We'll tackle this on a component level. POI refers to the whole project.

So why should you use POIFS or HSSF?

You'd use POIFS if you had a document written in OLE 2 Compound Document Format, probably written using MFC, that you needed to read in Java. Alternatively, you'd use POIFS to write OLE 2 Compound Document Format if you needed to inter-operate with software running on the Windows platform. We are not just bragging when we say that POIFS is the most complete and correct implementation of this file format to date!

You'd use HSSF if you needed to read or write an Excel file using Java (XLS). You can also read and modify spreadsheets using this API, although right now writing is more mature.

Answer 2

POI: Poor Obfuscation Implementation
This api is used to deal with office files like (word document and excel files)
You can find more details at
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/