[BangPypers] "Error :Attempt to overwrite cell" while using xlwt to create excel sheets

[Anand Chitipothu]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 5:17 PM, nikunj badjatya
<nikunjbadjatya at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I am using xlwt 0.7.2 and Python 2.6.
> I come across a situation wherein one of the "rows" of the excel sheet
> created was being overwritten. And it was flagging the following
> error.
>
> File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/xlwt/Row.py", line 150,
> in insert_cell
>     raise Exception(msg)
> Exception: Attempt to overwrite cell
>
> *Action Taken:*
> I commented out the "raise Exception" statement in Row.py library
> module.
> Here's the (line no. 150 ) of Row.py which i have edited:
>
>  def insert_cell(self, col_index, cell_obj):
>        if col_index in self.__cells:
>            if not self.__parent._cell_overwrite_ok:
>                msg = "Attempt to overwrite cell: sheetname=%r rowx=%d
> colx=%d" \
>                    % (self.__parent.name, self.__idx, col_index)
>                *#raise Exception(msg)
> #########*commented to avoid error. *
>            prev_cell_obj = self.__cells[col_index]
>            sst_idx = getattr(prev_cell_obj, 'sst_idx', None)
>            if sst_idx is not None:
>                self.__parent_wb.del_str(sst_idx)
>        self.__cells[col_index] = cell_obj
>
> The excel sheet creation code now works fine.
>
> *My question is, Instead of manually goin to /usr/lib/.../row.py and
> commenting out the line, Can this be done through few lines of code in
> my program itself. ??* As in if I use my program on different system,
> then again I have to comment out that line in row.py..!!
> Any suggestions??

Try setting:

worksheet._cell_overwrite_ok = True

Looks like you can do that even when adding new sheets.

sheet = workbook.add_sheet("foo", cell_overwrite_ok=True)

Anand