Spring Boot: Upload/Import Excel file data into MySQL Database

The Excel file is a spreadsheet file format created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Excel. You can use the file to create, view, edit, analyse data, charts, budgets and more. In this tutorial, I will show you how to upload/import Excel file data into MySQL Database using Spring Boot & Apache POI, then export Rest API to return Excel file from database table.

Related Posts:
Spring Boot Multipart File upload example
How to upload multiple files in Java Spring Boot
Upload/Import CSV file to MySQL Database in Spring Boot
Spring Boot: Download Excel file from MySQL database table
– Documentation: Spring Boot Swagger 3 example
– Caching: Spring Boot Redis Cache example

Deployment:
Deploy Spring Boot App on AWS – Elastic Beanstalk
Docker Compose: Spring Boot and MySQL example


Spring Boot Rest APIs for uploading Excel Files

Assume that we have an .xlsx file that contains Tutorial data as following:

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-example-excel-data-sheet

We’re gonna create a Spring Boot Application that provides APIs for:

  • uploading Excel File to the Spring Server & storing data in MySQL Database
  • getting list of items from MySQL table
  • downloading MySQL table data as Excel file

After the Excel file is uploaded successfully, tutorials table in MySQL database will look like this:

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-example-database-table

If we get list of Tutorials, the Spring Rest Apis will return:

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-example-get-data-table

Spring Boot Rest API returns Excel File

If you send request to /api/excel/download, the server will return a response with an Excel file tutorials.xlsx that contains data in MySQL table:

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-example-download-excel-file

How to do this?
You need to set the HTTP header:

"Content-disposition" : "attachment; filename=[yourFileName]" 
"Content-Type" : "application/vnd.ms-excel"

You can find step by step for downloading Excel file in the tutorial:
Spring Boot: Download Excel file from MySQL database table

These are APIs to be exported:

Methods Urls Actions
POST /api/excel/upload upload an Excel File
GET /api/excel/tutorials get List of items in db table
GET /api/excel/download download db data as Excel file

Technology

  • Java 8
  • Spring Boot 2 (with Spring Web MVC)
  • Maven 3.6.1
  • Apache POI 4.1.2

Project Structure

This is the project directory that we’re gonna build:

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-project-structure

ExcelHelper provides functions to read Excel file.

Tutorial data model class corresponds to entity and table tutorials.
TutorialRepository is an interface that extends JpaRepository for persisting data.

ExcelService uses ExcelHelper and TutorialRepository methods to save Excel data to MySQL, load data to Excel file, or get all Tutorials from MySQL table.

ExcelController calls ExcelService methods and export Rest APIs: upload Excel file, get data from MySQL database.

FileUploadExceptionAdvice handles exception when the controller processes file upload.

application.properties contains configuration for Spring Data and Servlet Multipart file.
pom.xml for Spring Boot, MySQL connector, Apache POI dependencies.

Setup Spring Boot Excel File Upload project

Use Spring web tool or your development tool (Spring Tool Suite, Eclipse, Intellij) to create a Spring Boot project.

Then open pom.xml and add these dependencies:

<dependency>
	<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency>

<dependency>
	<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

<dependency>
	<groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
	<artifactId>poi-ooxml</artifactId>
	<version>4.1.2</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
	<groupId>mysql</groupId>
	<artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
	<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>

Configure Spring Datasource, JPA, Hibernate

Under src/main/resources folder, open application.properties and write these lines.

spring.datasource.url= jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/testdb?useSSL=false
spring.datasource.username= root
spring.datasource.password= 123456

spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.dialect= org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect

# Hibernate ddl auto (create, create-drop, validate, update)
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto= update
  • spring.datasource.username & spring.datasource.password properties are the same as your database installation.
  • Spring Boot uses Hibernate for JPA implementation, we configure MySQL5InnoDBDialect for MySQL database
  • spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto is used for database initialization. We set the value to update value so that a table will be created in the database automatically corresponding to defined data model. Any change to the model will also trigger an update to the table. For production, this property should be validate.

Define Data Model

Our Data model is Tutorial with four fields: id, title, description, published.
In model package, we define Tutorial class.

model/Tutorial.java

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.model;

import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table(name = "tutorials")
public class Tutorial {

  @Id
  @Column(name = "id")
  private long id;

  @Column(name = "title")
  private String title;

  @Column(name = "description")
  private String description;

  @Column(name = "published")
  private boolean published;

  public Tutorial() {

  }

  public Tutorial(String title, String description, boolean published) {
    this.title = title;
    this.description = description;
    this.published = published;
  }

  public long getId() {
    return id;
  }

  public void setId(long id) {
    this.id = id;
  }

  public String getTitle() {
    return title;
  }

  public void setTitle(String title) {
    this.title = title;
  }

  public String getDescription() {
    return description;
  }

  public void setDescription(String description) {
    this.description = description;
  }

  public boolean isPublished() {
    return published;
  }

  public void setPublished(boolean isPublished) {
    this.published = isPublished;
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return "Tutorial [id=" + id + ", title=" + title + ", desc=" + description + ", published=" + published + "]";
  }
}

@Entity annotation indicates that the class is a persistent Java class.
@Table annotation provides the table that maps this entity.
@Id annotation is for the primary key.
@Column annotation is used to define the column in database that maps annotated field.

Create Data Repository for working with Database

Let’s create a repository to interact with Tutorials from the database.
In repository package, create TutorialRepository interface that extends JpaRepository.

repository/TutorialRepository.java

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.repository;

import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;

import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.model.Tutorial;

public interface TutorialRepository extends JpaRepository<Tutorial, Long> {
}

Now we can use JpaRepository’s methods: save(), findOne(), findById(), findAll(), count(), delete(), deleteById()… without implementing these methods.

The quantity of rows in Excel file (also tutorials table) could be large, so you may want to get only several at once by modifying this Repository to work with Pagination, the instruction can be found at:
Spring Boot Pagination & Filter example | Spring JPA, Pageable

More Derived queries at:
JPA Repository query example in Spring Boot

Custom query with @Query annotation:
Spring JPA @Query example: Custom query in Spring Boot

You also find way to write Unit Test for this JPA Repository at:
Spring Boot Unit Test for JPA Repository with @DataJpaTest

Implement Read/Write Excel Helper Class

We’re gonna use Apache POI classes such as: Workbook, Sheet, Row, Cell.
Let me summarize the steps for reading from Excel file:

  • create Workbook from InputStream
  • create Sheet using Workbook.getSheet() method
  • iterate over Rows by Iterator with Sheet.iterator() and Iterator.hasNext()
  • from each Row, iterate over Cells
  • with each Cell, use getNumericCellValue(), getStringCellValue()… methods to read and parse the content
Workbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook(inputStream);
Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
Iterator<Row> rows = sheet.iterator();

while (rows.hasNext()) {
  Row currentRow = rows.next();

  Iterator<Cell> cellsInRow = currentRow.iterator();

  while (cellsInRow.hasNext()) {
     Cell currentCell = cellsInRow.next();

     // each cell case
     id = (long) currentCell.getNumericCellValue();
     title = currentCell.getStringCellValue();
     published = currentCell.getBooleanCellValue();
  }
     
workbook.close();

Under helper package, we create ExcepHelper class with 2 methods:

  • hasExcelFormat(): check if a file has Excel format or not
  • excelToTutorials(): read InputStream of a file, return a list of Tutorials

Here is full code of helper/ExcelHelper.java:

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.helper;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Cell;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Row;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.model.Tutorial;

public class ExcelHelper {
  public static String TYPE = "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet";
  static String[] HEADERs = { "Id", "Title", "Description", "Published" };
  static String SHEET = "Tutorials";

  public static boolean hasExcelFormat(MultipartFile file) {

    if (!TYPE.equals(file.getContentType())) {
      return false;
    }

    return true;
  }

  public static List<Tutorial> excelToTutorials(InputStream is) {
    try {
      Workbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook(is);

      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      Iterator<Row> rows = sheet.iterator();

      List<Tutorial> tutorials = new ArrayList<Tutorial>();

      int rowNumber = 0;
      while (rows.hasNext()) {
        Row currentRow = rows.next();

        // skip header
        if (rowNumber == 0) {
          rowNumber++;
          continue;
        }

        Iterator<Cell> cellsInRow = currentRow.iterator();

        Tutorial tutorial = new Tutorial();

        int cellIdx = 0;
        while (cellsInRow.hasNext()) {
          Cell currentCell = cellsInRow.next();

          switch (cellIdx) {
          case 0:
            tutorial.setId((long) currentCell.getNumericCellValue());
            break;

          case 1:
            tutorial.setTitle(currentCell.getStringCellValue());
            break;

          case 2:
            tutorial.setDescription(currentCell.getStringCellValue());
            break;

          case 3:
            tutorial.setPublished(currentCell.getBooleanCellValue());
            break;

          default:
            break;
          }

          cellIdx++;
        }

        tutorials.add(tutorial);
      }

      workbook.close();

      return tutorials;
    } catch (IOException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException("fail to parse Excel file: " + e.getMessage());
    }
  }
}

Don’t forget to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
...
Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);

Create Excel File Service

ExcelService class will be annotated with @Service annotation, it uses ExcelHelper and TutorialRepository for 2 functions:

  • save(MultipartFile file): store Excel data to database
  • getAllTutorials(): read data from database and return List<Tutorial>

service/ExcelService.java

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.service;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.helper.ExcelHelper;
import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.model.Tutorial;
import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.repository.TutorialRepository;

@Service
public class ExcelService {
  @Autowired
  TutorialRepository repository;

  public void save(MultipartFile file) {
    try {
      List<Tutorial> tutorials = ExcelHelper.excelToTutorials(file.getInputStream());
      repository.saveAll(tutorials);
    } catch (IOException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException("fail to store excel data: " + e.getMessage());
    }
  }

  public List<Tutorial> getAllTutorials() {
    return repository.findAll();
  }
}

Define Response Message

The ResponseMessage is for message to client that we’re gonna use in Rest Controller and Exception Handler.

message/ResponseMessage.java

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.message;

public class ResponseMessage {
  private String message;

  public ResponseMessage(String message) {
    this.message = message;
  }

  public String getMessage() {
    return message;
  }

  public void setMessage(String message) {
    this.message = message;
  }
}

Create Controller for Upload Excel Files

In controller package, we create ExcelController class for Rest Apis.
@CrossOrigin is for configuring allowed origins.
@Controller annotation indicates that this is a controller.
@GetMapping and @PostMapping annotation is for mapping HTTP GET & POST requests onto specific handler methods:

  • POST /upload: uploadFile()
  • GET /tutorials: getAllTutorials()

– We use @Autowired to inject implementation of ExcelService bean to local variable.

controller/ExcelController.java

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.controller;

import java.util.List;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.http.HttpStatus;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PostMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.helper.ExcelHelper;
import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.message.ResponseMessage;
import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.model.Tutorial;
import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.service.ExcelService;

@CrossOrigin("http://localhost:8081")
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/api/excel")
public class ExcelController {

  @Autowired
  ExcelService fileService;

  @PostMapping("/upload")
  public ResponseEntity<ResponseMessage> uploadFile(@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) {
    String message = "";

    if (ExcelHelper.hasExcelFormat(file)) {
      try {
        fileService.save(file);

        message = "Uploaded the file successfully: " + file.getOriginalFilename();
        return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.OK).body(new ResponseMessage(message));
      } catch (Exception e) {
        message = "Could not upload the file: " + file.getOriginalFilename() + "!";
        return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.EXPECTATION_FAILED).body(new ResponseMessage(message));
      }
    }

    message = "Please upload an excel file!";
    return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST).body(new ResponseMessage(message));
  }

  @GetMapping("/tutorials")
  public ResponseEntity<List<Tutorial>> getAllTutorials() {
    try {
      List<Tutorial> tutorials = fileService.getAllTutorials();

      if (tutorials.isEmpty()) {
        return new ResponseEntity<>(HttpStatus.NO_CONTENT);
      }

      return new ResponseEntity<>(tutorials, HttpStatus.OK);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      return new ResponseEntity<>(null, HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
    }
  }
}

Configure Multipart File for Servlet

Let’s define the maximum file size that can be uploaded in application.properties as following:

spring.servlet.multipart.max-file-size=2MB
spring.servlet.multipart.max-request-size=2MB
  • spring.servlet.multipart.max-file-size: max file size for each request.
  • spring.servlet.multipart.max-request-size: max request size for a multipart/form-data.

Handle File Upload Exception

This is where we handle the case in that a request exceeds Max Upload Size. The system will throw MaxUploadSizeExceededException and we’re gonna use @ControllerAdvice with @ExceptionHandlerannotation for handling the exceptions.

exception/FileUploadExceptionAdvice.java

package com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.exception;

import org.springframework.web.multipart.MaxUploadSizeExceededException;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ResponseEntityExceptionHandler;

import com.bezkoder.spring.files.excel.message.ResponseMessage;

import org.springframework.http.HttpStatus;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ControllerAdvice;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ExceptionHandler;

@ControllerAdvice
public class FileUploadExceptionAdvice extends ResponseEntityExceptionHandler {

  @ExceptionHandler(MaxUploadSizeExceededException.class)
  public ResponseEntity<ResponseMessage> handleMaxSizeException(MaxUploadSizeExceededException exc) {
    return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.EXPECTATION_FAILED).body(new ResponseMessage("File too large!"));
  }
}

Run & Check

Run Spring Boot application with command: mvn spring-boot:run.

Let’s use Postman to make some requests.

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-example-send-upload-request

If you upload a file with size larger than max file size (2MB):

spring-boot-upload-excel-file-mysql-example-upload-exception

Conclusion

Today we’ve built a Rest CRUD API using Spring Boot to upload and import data from Excel file to Mysql database table.

We also see how to use Apache POI to read data from Excel Sheet, JpaRepository to retrieve items in database table without need of boilerplate code.

More Derived queries at:
JPA Repository query example in Spring Boot

Custom query with @Query annotation:
Spring JPA @Query example: Custom query in Spring Boot

If you want to add Pagination to this Spring project, you can find the instruction at:
Spring Boot Pagination & Filter example | Spring JPA, Pageable

For downloading Excel file:
Spring Boot: Download Excel file from MySQL database table

Upload CSV File instead:
Spring Boot: Upload CSV file Data into MySQL Database

Or upload files to database as BLOB:
Spring Boot Upload/Download File to/from Database example

spring-boot-upload-files-to-database-table-files

Happy learning! See you again.

Further Reading

Deployment:
Deploy Spring Boot App on AWS – Elastic Beanstalk
Docker Compose: Spring Boot and MySQL example

Source Code

You can find the complete source code for this tutorial on Github.

39 thoughts to “Spring Boot: Upload/Import Excel file data into MySQL Database”

  1. Nice tutorial. Struggled with get request via postman. This helped:

    Steps to use ‘Multipart/form-data ‘ in Postman

    • Create a new tab
    • Insert controller Url
    • Set method type as POST
    • Under Body tab, select form-data
    • For each key that is a file, set Value type as File
  2. Hey, I used your code but it isn’t working for me.
    On enabling Content-Type as “multipart/form-data; boundary=” I get a blank response with no message. On enabling the Content-Type with “application/vnd.ms-excel” I get a 500 Internal Server Error, with the message: “Current request is not a multipart request”.

    The download link is working fine, it downloads a blank excel sheet with just the column headings. Also, the table structure is being created in the MySQL database. How do I make the upload function work?

  3. Required request part ‘file’ is not present]
    I am getting this error
    Resolved [org.springframework.web.multipart.support.MissingServletRequestPartException: Required request part ‘file’ is not present]

  4. Can you extend this example to demonstrate how this feature can be used to manage many to many relationship between two entities represented as two sheets in the workbook?

  5. Hello Sir, when I try to upload it via postman, it give me response 400 bad request : “required request part ‘file’ is not present”
    Do you have any idea what wrong with it ?

    1. Solved, I didn’t recognized that I need to type ‘file’ in the key section in postman.
      But I got new error when send request “Handler dispatch failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/commons/io/output/UnsynchronizedByteArrayOutputStream”

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  6. I am getting an error while uploading the file
    sheet.iterator() cannot be invoked because sheet is null.

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  7. I created a tutorials.xlsx file with the same fields and I get the below error in postman
    {
    “message”: “Could not upload the file: tutorials.xlsx!”
    }

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  8. I can’t upload to the database I get a message:
    “message”: “Could not upload the file: tutorials.xlsx!”
    I use an example from gitub, get and download tutorials works properly but upload does not work.
    Thank you in advance

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  9. {“message”:”Could not upload the file: tutorials.xlsx!”}
    error 417
    the server cannot meet the operations of the exception request-header field
    please help me to solve this problem

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  10. I have this problem, although my xlsx has information.

    Cannot invoke \”org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet.iterator()\” because \”sheet\” is null”

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  11. hello, I am following how to upload the spring boot excel file, but I have problems when trying to postman the message “message”: “Could not upload the file: tutori.xlsx!”,
    even though my excel has .xlsx,
    please find a solution

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  12. I would like to suggest two changes here in the ExcelHelper.java file

    Workbook workbook = WorkbookFactory.create(is);
    Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheetAt(0);
    

    Otherwise we get a null object of sheet and we were not able to store the data into the db table.

    1. Great omkar after changing to this code only, the file is successfully insert into database.

      Thank you so much!

      1. Could You please help me out ???? I am not able to insert it even after making the changes

  13. Hi ,
    I am getting a 417 error with message as {
    “message”: “Could not Upload the file: TestCase.xlsx!”
    }
    While running the test my header is only Content-type =”multipart/form-data”
    Can you please help me where I could have went wrong?

    1. Hi, you need to change the sheet name to Tutorials (or any name you want). It’s because we create Sheet object from that name.

      static String SHEET = "Tutorials";
      ...
      Sheet sheet = workbook.getSheet(SHEET);
      
  14. getting org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name ‘entityManagerFactory’ defined in class path resource [org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/orm/jpa/HibernateJpaConfiguration.class]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: default] Unable to build Hibernate SessionFactory; nested exception is org.hibernate.exception.JDBCConnectionException: Unable to open JDBC Connection for DDL execution

    1. Hi, correct mysql credentials in the src > main > application.properties file

      Check if your mysql credentials are correct and mysql server is running.

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