xlfilldown 0.1.1

Stream an Excel sheet into SQLite or Excel with forward-fill padding, preserved Excel row numbers, and a stable row hash.

xlfilldown

Stream an Excel sheet into SQLite or a new Excel sheet in constant memory. Forward-fill (pad) selected columns by header name, preserve original Excel row numbers, and compute a stable SHA-256 row hash.

• Ingests only columns with non-empty headers (from --header-row).
• Stores all non-empty values as TEXT strings (numbers/dates canonicalized to stable text; strings are stripped; whitespace-only cells become NULL).
• Adds optional excel_row and row_hash columns.
• Streams rows; suitable for large sheets.

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Install

From PyPI (recommended)

pip install xlfilldown
# or
pipx install xlfilldown

Python ≥ 3.9. Depends on openpyxl.

CLI

xlfilldown has two subcommands. They share the same input options, and differ only in output destination.

• db → write to SQLite
• xlsx → write to Excel

Common input options

• --infile (required): Path to input .xlsx file.

• --insheet (required): Sheet name to read.

• --header-row (required, 1-based): Row number containing the headers.

• --pad-cols: JSON array of header names to forward-fill.
  Example: '["tier1","tier2","tier,4"]'.

• --pad-cols-letters: Alternative to --pad-cols.
  Provide Excel column letters (A B C AE etc.). These are resolved to header names using --header-row.
  If a referenced column’s header cell is empty (None, whitespace, or “nan”), the command will error.
  Mutually exclusive with --pad-cols.

• --pad-mode (default: hierarchical): Fill-down strategy.

  • hierarchical → default. Higher-tier changes reset lower-tier carries.
  • independent → legacy/pandas-style ffill. Each padded column carries independently.

• --drop-blank-rows: Drop rows where all padded columns are empty after padding (treat as spacer rows).

• --require-non-null: JSON array of headers; drop the row if any are null/blank after padding.

• --row-hash: Include a row_hash column. In DB mode this also creates a non-unique index on row_hash.

• --excel-row-numbers: Include original Excel row numbers in column excel_row (1-based).

• --if-exists (default: fail): fail | replace | append.

db subcommand (SQLite output)

Additional options:

• --db (required): SQLite database file (created if missing).
• --table: SQLite table name (default: derived from input sheet name).
• --batch-size (default: 1000): Rows per executemany() batch.

Create/append semantics

• Table columns are: [row_hash?] [excel_row?] + headers… (all TEXT, including excel_row).
• If --if-exists append, the existing table schema must exactly match the expected column order.
• Helpful indexes are created automatically when enabled: excel_row and row_hash.

Examples

By header names:

xlfilldown db \
  --infile data.xlsx \
  --insheet "Sheet1" \
  --header-row 1 \
  --pad-cols '["columnname1","columnname2","anothercolumn,3"]' \
  --db out.db

By column letters:

xlfilldown db \
  --infile data.xlsx \
  --insheet "Sheet1" \
  --header-row 1 \
  --pad-cols-letters A C AE \
  --db out.db

xlsx subcommand (Excel output)

Additional options:

• --outfile (required): Output .xlsx file.
• --outsheet: Output sheet name (default: derived from input sheet name).

Sheet-level --if-exists

• fail: error if target sheet exists.
• replace: recreate target sheet fresh.
• append: append below existing rows; the destination header row must match the expected header list (including excel_row and/or row_hash if enabled).

Examples

By header names:

xlfilldown xlsx \
  --infile data.xlsx \
  --insheet "Sheet1" \
  --header-row 1 \
  --pad-cols '["columnname1","columnname2","anothercolumn,3"]' \
  --outfile out.xlsx \
  --outsheet Processed

By column letters:

xlfilldown xlsx \
  --infile data.xlsx \
  --insheet "Sheet1" \
  --header-row 1 \
  --pad-cols-letters A D \
  --outfile out.xlsx \
  --outsheet Processed

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Behavior details

Headers

• Only columns with non-empty header cells on --header-row are ingested.
• Empty or duplicate headers after normalization are rejected.

Forward-fill (padding)

• Hierarchical (default): Higher-tier changes reset lower-tier carries. Example:

  Tier1   Tier2   Tier3
  apple
         red     sour
  potato
         fried   yellow
  

  → produces:

  apple   red    sour
  potato  None   None
  potato  fried  yellow
  

• Independent (legacy): Each padded column carries independently (pandas-style ffill). Same input produces:

  apple   red    sour
  potato  red    sour
  potato  fried  yellow
  

• Completely empty rows (all headers blank) are preserved as empty without applying fill-down; the carry persists past them for later rows.

• Whitespace-only cells are treated as blank.

Dropping rows

• --drop-blank-rows: drops rows where all --pad-cols are blank (often spacer rows).
• --require-non-null [A,B,…]: drops rows where any of those headers are blank after padding.

Row hash

• --row-hash adds a SHA-256 hex digest over all ingested columns (in header order) after padding for non-empty rows.
• For completely empty rows, the hash reflects all-empty values (no padding is applied by design).
• SQLite mode creates a non-unique index on row_hash for faster lookups.
• Numeric cells are normalized for hashing (e.g., 1, 1.0 → 1; no scientific notation).

Excel row numbers

• --excel-row-numbers includes the original Excel row number (1-based) in column excel_row.

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Python API

from xlfilldown.core import ingest_excel_to_sqlite, ingest_excel_to_excel

# → SQLite
summary = ingest_excel_to_sqlite(
    file="data.xlsx",
    sheet="Sheet1",
    header_row=1,
    pad_cols=["columnname1","columnname2","anothercolumn,3"],
    db="out.db",
    table=None,
    drop_blank_rows=True,
    require_non_null=["columnname1","columnname2"],
    row_hash=True,
    excel_row_numbers=True,
    if_exists="replace",
    batch_size=1000,
    pad_hierarchical=True,   # default
)

# → Excel
summary = ingest_excel_to_excel(
    file="data.xlsx",
    sheet="Sheet1",
    header_row=1,
    pad_cols=["columnname1","columnname2","anothercolumn,3"],
    outfile="out.xlsx",
    outsheet=None,
    drop_blank_rows=True,
    require_non_null=["columnname1","columnname2"],
    row_hash=True,
    excel_row_numbers=True,
    if_exists="replace",
    pad_hierarchical=False,  # use independent fill
)

Return fields

• SQLite: { table, columns, rows_ingested, row_hash, excel_row_numbers }
• Excel: { workbook, sheet, columns, rows_written, row_hash, excel_row_numbers }

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Notes

• All destination columns are written as TEXT (including excel_row). Values are stored as canonical strings; hashing uses the same canonicalization.
• The input workbook is opened with read_only=True, data_only=True (formulas are evaluated to cached values).

License

MIT © RexBytes