What do excel xml cell attribute values mean? What do excel xml cell attribute values mean? xml xml

What do excel xml cell attribute values mean?


  • r = Reference
  • s = Style Index
  • t = Cell Data Type

The documentation for the Cell class is here

The possible cell data types are:

  • b - boolean
  • d - date in ISO8601 format
  • e - error
  • inlineStr - string that doesn't use the shared string table
  • n - number
  • s - shared string
  • str - formula string

These values are in section 18.18.11 of the ECMA-376 standard which can be found here (specifically they are on pages 2442-2443 of the PDF file in the ECMA-376 4th edition part 1 download)

Looking at the XML schema later in that PDF file (page 3912, line 2301), the use of the t attribute is optional and the default value is n - i.e. a number


Part 1 of the 5th edition of the ECMA-476 spec was released in 2016. The equivalent page references for the 5th edition are: page 2451 for the documentation of ST_CellType and page 3928, line 2301 for the ST_CellType entry in the XML schema


have a look at Open XML SDK. Its a good starting point for what your looking for