biff (.xls) versus ooxml (.xlsx) Performance on Load

[nathanfurby]

Hi there

I have a couple of data sources which are Excel sheets - one set is in .xlsx format and another is in .xls format.

I have noticed that the .xlsx load (i.e. ooxml instead of biff) is considerably slower. I performed a quick test by changing the format (and extension) of one of the Excel sheets and it looks like ooxml load is somewhere in the region of 10--20 times slower than the biff load!

Couple of questions

1. Has anyone else experienced this?
2. Is this normal behaviour/something I should already be aware of?
3. Are other formats even quicker i.e. csv?

Thanks

[nathanfurby]

No Comments? Well I can only assume that the ooxml load is no where near as efficient as the biff load and that's just the way it is.

For anyone's future interest - I was loading about 100 .xlsx files in my script and it was taking about 20mins. I wrote a macro to convert and save all the files to .xls format and as a result the load time was reduced to a little over 60secs!!

[brenner_martina]

Hi,

that's really very strange! I use nearly every day both formats and can not find any difference in loading time. How many rows are in your files?

[nathanfurby]

Hi Martina - not many rows really. About 15,000 in each file and about 30 columns. I do have a WHERE clause on the load - perhaps biff is just much more efficient than ooxml when it is not a straight load (would optimised be the term I am looking for here? )

[#5]

Hi all I had case come in to support and have logged a defect as such the defect # is 33657, hope we will have an answer soon.