EntLib Data Access Block and Excel

I need to be able to open an Excel workbook and grab the data from one of the worksheets. I don’t want to use any Office InterOperability (as that sucks) and I know I can do it using ADO.Net. But since 1.) I hate writing all of that DataAdapter / Connection code because 2.) I am lazy I decided to see how hard it would be to use the EntLib DAB.

Turned out it was pretty easy.

Create your configuration as such:

Then call your code as such:

public static DataSet GetWorksheet()  
{  
    string sql = "SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]";  
    string connectionName = "Book1";  
    
    return DatabaseFactory
        .CreateDatabase(connectionName)  
        .ExecuteDataSet(CommandType.Text, sql);  
}  

And that is that. One DataSet ready to go.