Element classes do not contain all child element-related properties

Description

The DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Spreadsheet.Worksheet class only has properties for 4 out of 38 child elements. For example, there is no property for the only mandatory child element, x:sheetData, which is likely among the most frequently referenced elements.

As per the schema, those child elements have to be in a defined order, which, in the absence of SDK support, needs to be ensured by the caller’s code. That increases the size and complexity of the code.

Information

• .NET Target: all
• DocumentFormat.OpenXml Version: 3cc26570f2964a5d56a5988f9464b2e4b29812c7

Observed

The Worksheet class defines the following child elements:

    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetProperties))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetDimension))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetViews))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetFormatProperties))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(Columns))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetData))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetCalculationProperties))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SheetProtection))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(ProtectedRanges))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(Scenarios))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(AutoFilter))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(SortState))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(DataConsolidate))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(CustomSheetViews))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(MergeCells))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(PhoneticProperties))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(ConditionalFormatting))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(DataValidations))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(Hyperlinks))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(PrintOptions))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(PageMargins))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(PageSetup))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(HeaderFooter))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(RowBreaks))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(ColumnBreaks))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(CustomProperties))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(CellWatches))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(IgnoredErrors))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(Drawing))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(LegacyDrawing))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(LegacyDrawingHeaderFooter))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(DrawingHeaderFooter))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(Picture))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(OleObjects))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(Controls))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(WebPublishItems))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(TableParts))]
    [ChildElementInfo(typeof(WorksheetExtensionList))]

However, the Worksheet class only provides the following properties:

    /// <summary>
    /// <para> SheetProperties.</para>
    /// <para> Represents the following element tag in the schema: x:sheetPr </para>
    /// </summary>
    /// <remark>
    /// xmlns:x = http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main
    /// </remark>
    public SheetProperties SheetProperties
    {
        get => GetElement<SheetProperties>(0);
        set => SetElement(0, value);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// <para> SheetDimension.</para>
    /// <para> Represents the following element tag in the schema: x:dimension </para>
    /// </summary>
    /// <remark>
    /// xmlns:x = http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main
    /// </remark>
    public SheetDimension SheetDimension
    {
        get => GetElement<SheetDimension>(1);
        set => SetElement(1, value);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// <para> SheetViews.</para>
    /// <para> Represents the following element tag in the schema: x:sheetViews </para>
    /// </summary>
    /// <remark>
    /// xmlns:x = http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main
    /// </remark>
    public SheetViews SheetViews
    {
        get => GetElement<SheetViews>(2);
        set => SetElement(2, value);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// <para> SheetFormatProperties.</para>
    /// <para> Represents the following element tag in the schema: x:sheetFormatPr </para>
    /// </summary>
    /// <remark>
    /// xmlns:x = http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main
    /// </remark>
    public SheetFormatProperties SheetFormatProperties
    {
        get => GetElement<SheetFormatProperties>(3);
        set => SetElement(3, value);
    }

Expected

Given that the child elements must be in a defined order, the Worksheet class defines properties for all child elements.

[ThomasBarnekow]

@twsouthwick, just checking whether this issue is still open. Otherwise, we might want to close it.

[jptemplin]

For example, while AppendChild does nothing wrong on a technical level, it makes it easy to do the wrong thing on an Open XML schema level. For example, when you want to add a Paragraph child element to a Body parent element that already has a SectionProperties child element, using AppendChild adds the Paragraph after the SectionProperties, leading to invalid markup.

I’m late to the game here, but this newbie got caught up by this.

My use case: I use a Word doc seeded with 35 styles as a template to create nicely-formatted cooking recipes read from a database. I copy this “empty” doc, and append the recipe text to the copy. The styles do all the formatting. It took me awhile to figure out that my paragraphs appended to the end of the copied doc were being added AFTER the SectionProperties already at the end of the document, and that’s incorrect. Because I couldn’t figure out how to insert new paragraphs BEFORE the existing SectionProperties, what I ended up doing is opening the copy, deleting all the children from the body, appending new parargraphs to my heart’s content, then programmatically create and append the SectionProperties at the end. I had hoped to have the template define those section properties rather than code, but it worked.