Ask HN: Lint tool for Microsoft Excel?

2 pointsby rahimnathwani8 lat temu1 comments

There are many best practices for building models in Excel, some which should be followed always (e.g. don't use hard-coded numbers in a formula) and some which are less well-accepted (e.g. never use VLOOKUP, and instead use INDEX and MATCH).

There are Python libraries to read/write Excel files, so it wouldn't be too hard to write a lint tool that could be run via the command line (or by uploading the file to a web page) and output recommendations for improvements in specific cells.

Does something like this, or that serves the same purpose, already exist?

1 comments

bjoerns8 lat temu

It's an interesting idea (though I'm not sure how much appetite there is out there).

We've built a version-control app on top of Git for workbook files (www.xltrail.com) so I know a thing or two about parsing the cell content of sheets.

There is no Python library that supports reading cell formula content across all workbook files (for instance, xlrd does not support formulae at all).

If you can go beyond Python, have a look at sheetjs.com (open-source JavaScript based) or Aspose (commercial .NET solution).

That aside, "client" integration of such a tool could be a major blocker from our own experience. E.g. if you could build it in such a way that it's "fire and forget" (like uploading it to SharePoint and integrate it there) it is a lot more likely to being used. Or integrate it via Git (drop me a message if you want to chat). Or add it as a feature to something like rubberduckvba.