How To: Read MSPDI files

The Microsoft Project Data Interchange (MSPDI) format is an XML file format which Microsoft Project has been able to read and write since Project 2002.

Reading MSPDI files

The simplest way to read an MSPDI file is to use the UniversalProjectReader:

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.reader.UniversalProjectReader;

// ...

UniversalProjectReader reader = new UniversalProjectReader();
ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-sample.xml");

Using MSPDIReader

You can work directly with the MSPDIReader class by replacing UniversalProjectReader with MSPDIReader. This provides access to additional options, as described below.

Encoding

By default MPXJ assumes that MSPDI files are encoded as UTF-8. The UniversalProjectReader understands Unicode Byte Order Marks (BOM) and will adjust the encoding appropriately if a BOM is present. If you have an MSPDI file with an unusual encoding, you can manually set the encoding used by the reader.

Two methods are provided to do this: setCharset and setEncoding. The setCharset method takes an instance of the Charset class, while the setEncoding method takes the name of an encoding. Examples of these methods are shown below:

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.mspdi.MSPDIReader;

// ...

MSPDIReader reader = new MSPDIReader();

// Use a Charset instance
reader.setCharset(Charset.forName("GB2312"));
ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-sample.xml");

// Use an encoding name
reader.setEncoding("GB2312");
project = reader.read("my-sample.xml");

Microsoft Project Compatibility

Microsoft Project will read MSPDI files which are not valid XML according to the MSPDI schema. By default MPXJ has been configured to take the same approach. If for some reason you wish to apply strict validation when reading an MSPDI file, you can do this using the setMicrosoftProjectCompatibleInput method, as shown below.

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.mspdi.MSPDIReader;

// ...

MSPDIReader reader = new MSPDIReader();
reader.setMicrosoftProjectCompatibleInput(false);
ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-sample.xml");

Ignore Errors

By default MPXJ will ignore errors when parsing attributes from an MSPDI file. This behavior is controlled using the setIgnoreErrors method. The example below illustrates how we can force the MSPDIReader to report errors encountered when reading a file:

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.mspdi.MSPDIReader;

// ...

MSPDIReader reader = new MSPDIReader();

reader.setIgnoreErrors(false);
ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-sample.xml");

Note that if errors are ignored when reading a file, the ignored errors are available by using the ProjectFile.getIgnoredErrors() method.