How To: Read MPD files

Microsoft Project from Project 98 until Project 2003 could read and write schedules as Microsoft Access database files with the extension MPD. Versions of Microsoft Project after 2003 can import projects from MPD databases but cannot create or write to them. Project 98 creates a database with a schema known as MPD8, which MPXJ does not currently support reading. Project 2000 onward uses a schema called MPD9 which MPXJ can read.

Reading MPD files

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

JavaC#

package org.mpxj.howto.read;

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

public class MPDFile
{
    public void read() throws Exception
    {
        UniversalProjectReader reader = new UniversalProjectReader();
        ProjectFile project = reader.read("my-sample.mpd");
    }
}

using MPXJ.Net;

namespace MPXJ.Samples.HowToRead;

public class MPDFile
{
    public void Read()
    {
        var reader = new UniversalProjectReader();
        var project = reader.Read("my-sample.mpd");
    }
}

Note that the UniversalProjectReader.Read() method assumes that you are reading a project with ID of 1 from the MPD file. This is the default when a single project is written to an MPD file. Calling the ReadAll method will return all of the projects in the MPD file.

Using MPDFileReader

You can work directly with the MPDFileReader by replacing UniversalProjectReader with MPDFileReader. The sample code below illustrates how the reader can be used to retrieve a list of the projects in the file via the listProjects method. We can then select the ID of the project we want to read and use the setProjecID method to pass this to the reader. Finally, calling the read method reads the required project.

JavaC#

package org.mpxj.howto.read;

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.mpd.MPDFileReader;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.Map;

public class MPDFileWithReader
{
    public void read() throws Exception
    {
        File file = new File("my-sample.mpd");
        MPDFileReader reader = new MPDFileReader();

        // Retrieve the project details
        Map<Integer, String> projects = reader.listProjects(file);

        // Look up the project we want to read from the map.
        // For this example we'll just use a hard-coded value.
        Integer projectID = Integer.valueOf(1);

        // Set the ID f the project we want to read
        reader.setProjectID(projectID);

        // Read the project
        ProjectFile project = reader.read(file);
    }
}

using MPXJ.Net;

namespace MPXJ.Samples.HowToRead;

public class MPDFileWithReader
{
    public void Read()
    {
        var reader = new MPDFileReader();

        // Retrieve the project details
        var projects = reader.ListProjects("my-sample.mpd");

        // Look up the project we want to read from the map.
        // For this example we'll just use a hard-coded value.
        var projectID = 1;

        // Set the ID f the project we want to read
        reader.ProjectID = projectID;

        // Read the project
        var project = reader.Read("my-sample.mpd");
    }
}