Argument and Return Types¶

@xl_func Function Signature¶

The most common way to provide the signature is to provide a function signature as the first argument to xl_func:

from pyxll import xl_func
from datetime import date, timedelta

@xl_func("date d, int i: date")
def add_days(d, i):
    return d + timedelta(days=i)

When adding a function signature string it is written as a comma separated list of each argument type followed by the argument name, ending with a colon followed by the return type. The signature above specifies that the function takes two arguments called d, a date, and i, and integer, and returns a value of type date. You may omit the return type; PyXLL automatically converts it into the most appropriate Excel type.

Adding type information is useful as it means that any necessary type conversion is done automatically, before your function is called.

Python Type Hints¶

Type information can also be provided using type annotations, or hints, in Python 3.

This example shows how you pass dates to Python functions from Excel using type annotations:

from pyxll import xl_func
from datetime import date, timedelta

@xl_func
def add_days(d: date, i: int) -> date:
    return d + timedelta(days=i)

Internally, an Excel date is just a floating-point a number. If you pass a date to a Python function with no type information then that argument will just be a Python float when it is passed to your Python function. Adding a signature removes the need to convert from a float to a date in every function that expects a date. The annotation on your Python function (or the signature argument to xl_func) tells PyXLL and Excel what type you expect, and the the conversion is done automatically.

@xl_arg and @xl_return Decorators¶

The final way type information can be added to a function is by using specific argument and return type decorators. These are particularly useful for more complex types that require parameters, such as NumPy arrays and Pandas types. Parameterized types can be specified as part of the function signature, or using xl_arg and xl_return.

For example, the following function takes two 1-dimensional NumPy arrays, using a function signature:

from pyxll import xl_func
import numpy as np

@xl_func("numpy_array<ndim=1> a, numpy_array<ndim=1> b: var")
def add_days(a, b):
    return np.correlate(a, b)

But this could be re-written using xl_arg as follows:

from pyxll import xl_func, xl_arg
import numpy as np

@xl_func
@xl_arg("a", "numpy_array", ndim=1)
@xl_arg("b", "numpy_array", ndim=1)
def add_days(a, b):
    return np.correlate(a, b)

Type Parameters¶

Many types can be parameterised to further control the type conversion between Excel and Python. An example of this is in the section above where we see the numpy_array type accepts a type parameter ndim.

Type parameters can be specified when using a function signature, or when using the xl_arg and xl_return decorators.

For details of the type parameters available see the specific documentation for the type you are interested in. Type parameters can be different depending on whether it is the argument conversion or return conversion that is being specified.

Array Types¶

See Array Functions for more details about array functions.

Ranges of cells can be passed from Excel to Python as a 1d or 2d array.

Any type can be used as an array type by appending [] for a 1d array or [][] for a 2d array:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("float[][] array: float")
def py_sum(array):
    """return the sum of a range of cells"""
    total = 0.0

    # 2d array is a list of lists of floats
    for row in array:
        for cell_value in row:
            total += cell_value

    return total

A 1d array is represented in Python as a simple list, and when a simple list is returned to Excel it will be returned as a column of data. A 2d array is a list of lists (list of rows) in Python. To return a single row of data, return it as a 2d list of lists with only a single row.

When returning a 2d array remember that it* must* be a list of lists. This is why you woud return a single a row of data as [[1, 2, 3, 4]], for example. To enter an array formula in Excel you select the cells, enter the formula and then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

Any type can be used as an array type, but float[] and float[][] require the least marshalling between Excel and python and are therefore the fastest of the array types.

If you a function argument has no type specified or is using the var type, if it is passed a range of data that will be converted into a 2d list of lists of values and passed to the Python function.

See NumPy Array Types and Pandas Types for details of how to pass numpy and pandas types between Excel and Python functions.

The ‘var’ Type¶

The var type can be used when your function accepts any type. It is also the default type used if no other type is specified.

When an argument is passed from Excel to Python using the var type the most appropriate conversion is chosen automatically from the primiative types natively supported by Excel.

The following examples all use the var type:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func
def my_function(x):
    # As no type was specified, both 'x' and return type type will
    # default to 'var'
    return str(type(x))  # return type is also 'var' as unspecified

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("x var: str")
def my_function(x):
    # x can be of any type as 'var' was specified as the argument
    # type in the function signature above.
    return str(type(x))  # return type is 'str' from the signature

from pyxll import xl_func
import typing

@xl_func
def my_function(x: typing.Any) -> str:
    # x will use the 'var' type because the 'Any' type hint was used
    return str(type(x))   # return type is 'str' from the type hint

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func
@xl_arg("x", "var")
def my_function(x):
    # x was specified to use the 'var' type using @xl_arg above
    return str(type(x))  # return type is unspecified as so 'var' is assumed

When using see cached objects the var will, by default, look up the cached object from the object handle passed to the function and pass the object to the function. This can be disabled using the no_object_lookup type parameter, for example var<no_object_lookup=True>.

Numpy Types¶

See NumPy Array Types for details about the supported Numpy types.

Pandas Types¶

See Pandas Types for details about the supported Pandas types.

Polars Types¶

See Polars DataFrames for details about the supported Polars types.

Dictionary Types¶

Python functions can be passed a dictionary, converted from an Excel range of values. Dicts in a spreadsheet are represented as a 2xN range of keys and their associated values. The keys are in the columns unless the range’s transpose argument (see below) is true.

The following is a simple function that accepts an dictionary of integers keyed by strings. Note that the key and value types are optional and default to var if not specified.

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("dict<str, int>: str")  # Keys are strings, values are integers
def dict_test(x):
    return str(x)

From PyXLL 5.8.0, if using Python 3.8 or higher, you can also use the standard TypedDict type annotation.

from typing import TypedDict
from pyxll import xl_func

class MyTypedDict(TypedDict):
  a: int
  b: int
  c: int

@xl_func
def dict_test(x: MyTypedDict) -> str:
    return str(x)

The dict type can be parameterized so that you can also specify the key and value types, and some other options.

• dict, when used as an argument type

  dict<key=var, value=var, transpose=False, ignore_missing_keys=True, ignore_missing_values=False>

  • key Type used for the dictionary keys.

  • value Type used for the dictionary values.

  • transpose - False (the default): Expect the dictionary with the keys on the first column of data and the values on the second. - True: Expect the dictionary with the keys on the first row of data and the values on the second. - None: Try to infer the orientation from the data passed to the function.

  • ignore_missing_keys If True, ignore any items where the key is missing.

  • ignore_missing_values If True, ignore any items where the value is missing (new in PyXLL 5.7).

• dict, when used as an return type

  dict<key=var, value=var, transpose=False, order_keys=True>

  • key Type used for the dictionary keys.

  • value Type used for the dictionary values.

  • transpose - False (the default): Return the dictionary as a 2xN range with the keys on the first column of data and the values on the second. - True: Return the dictionary as an Nx2 range with the keys on the first row of data and the values on the second.

  • order_keys Sort the dictionary by its keys before returning it to Excel.

Dataclass Types¶

Python dataclasses are a convenient way of creating Python classes encapsulating a collection of typed data fields.

They can also be used to make passing structured data objects between Python and Excel simpler.

Working with dataclasses in Excel is similar to using dictionaries. From Excel, a 2d array of key, value pairs can be passed to a function expecting a dataclass and the correct dataclass will be constructed automatically.

For example, the following code defines a dataclass:

from dataclasses import dataclass

@dataclass
class InventoryItem:
    """Class for keeping track of an item in inventory."""
    name: str
    unit_price: float
    quantity_on_hand: int = 0

To write an Excel function that accepts a dataclass of this type you simply need to add a type hint to the function argument:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func
def cost_of_stock(item: InventoryItem) -> float:
    """Returns the total cost of inventory items on hand."""
    return item.unit_price * item.quantity_on_hand

Or, if passing a signature string to xl_func instead of using type hints:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("InventoryItem item: float")
def cost_of_stock(item):
    """Returns the total cost of inventory items on hand."""
    return item.unit_price * item.quantity_on_hand

Lists of dataclasses can also be used. The first column of data is the field names, and subsequent columns are field values for each dataclass instance.

from pyxll import xl_func
from typing import List

@xl_func
def total_cost_of_stock(items: List[InventoryItem]) -> float:
    """Returns the total cost of inventory items on hand."""
    total = 0.0
    for item in items:
        total += item.unit_price * item.quantity_on_hand
    return total

If you data is laid out with the field names as column headers, use the transpose type parameter on the dataclass arguement, for example, using xl_arg:

from pyxll import xl_func, xl_arg

@xl_func
@xl_arg("items", transpose=True)
def total_cost_of_stock(items: List[InventoryItem]) -> float:
    ...

Or using a signature string to xl_func:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("InvetoryItem<transpose=True>[]: float")
def total_cost_of_stock(items: List[InventoryItem]) -> float:
    ...

Dataclasses can also be used as a return type.

Union Types¶

Union types can be used for functions that accept arguments or return objects of more than one types. In such examples, the var type can be used, but then the value may need to be converted in the function when it’s more convenient to let PyXLL do the conversion.

For example, support you have a function that can take either a date or a string. This is a common situation for functions that can either take an absolute date or a time period. Using the var type, Excel dates are passed as numbers since that is how Excel represents dates, and so the conversion from a number to a date must be done using get_type_converter (see Manual Type Conversion). Using a union type removes the need for thisextra conversion step.

Union types may be specified in the xl_func function signature using the union<...> type, with the possible types passed as parameters. They can also be specified using Python type annotations using the typing.Union type annotation.

The following is a function that will accept either a date or a str. The conversion from an Excel date to a Python date is performed automatically if a date is passed, and the function can also accept a string argument from Excel.

from pyxll import xl_func
import datetime as dt

@xl_func("union<date, str> value: str")
def date_or_string(value):
    if isinstance(value, dt.date):
        return "Value is a date: %s" % value
    return "Value is a string: %s" % value

The same can be written using Python type annotations as follows

from pyxll import xl_func
import datetime as dt
import typing

@xl_func
def date_or_string(value: typing.Union[dt.date, str]) -> str:
    if isinstance(value, dt.date):
        return "Value is a date: %s" % value
    return "Value is a string: %s" % value

The order the union type arguments are specified in matters.

In the above example, if str was placed before date then it would not work as intended since the conversion to str would take precedence over the conversion to date.

PyXLL will attempt to convert the Excel value to a Python value as follows:

1. If the Excel value is a cached object and one or more of the types are object or a type based on object, each object-like type conversion will be attempted in order from left to right.

2. If the Excel value exactly matches one of the types then the value will not be converted. This check is only possible for primitive types.

3. An attempt will be made to convert the value to each of the listed types in order, from left to right. The result from the first attempted conversion that succeeds will be used.

Optional Types¶

Optional types are used for arguments that can be omitted by the user calling the function. If the argument is omitted then None will be passed to Python.

Optional types may be specified in the xl_func function signature using the optional<type> type, with the actual type passed as the type parameter. They can also be specified using Python type annotations using the typing.Optional type annotation.

The following is a function that will accept an optional date argument. If no argument is provided then the function will be called with None.

from pyxll import xl_func
import datetime as dt

@xl_func("optional<date> value: str")
def optional_date(value):
    if value is None:
        return "No date"
    return value.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")

The same can be written using Python type annotations as follows

from pyxll import xl_func
import datetime as dt
import typing

@xl_func
def optional_date(value: typing.Optional[dt.date]) -> str:
    if value is None:
        return "No date"
    return value.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")

Function Type¶

Python functions exposed to Excel using xl_func can be passed in to other Python functions from Excel using the function type. This is useful when you have one function that takes another callback function that the user can select.

For example, the following function takes a list of values and a function and calls that function on each value and returns the result:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("float[] values, function fn: float[]")
def apply_function(values, fn):
    return [fn(value) for value in values]

This function can be called from Excel passing in another xl_func function.

from pyxll import xl_func
import math

@xl_func("float x: float")
def sigmoid(x):
    return 1  / (1 + math.exp(x))

We can call our sigmoid function on a single value in Excel, or using the apply_function function above we can pass in the sigmoid function and call it for list of values.

=apply_function(A1:A20, sigmoid)

If you are using Python type annotations instead of passing a signature string the types typing.Callable or collections.abc.Callable may be used to specify the argument is a function.

Error Types¶

Also See Error Handling.

Excel errors can be passed to, or returned from, Python functions that use the var or exception types. Similarly, Python functions can return specific errors to Excel by returning Python Exception objects.

PyXLL maps Excel errors to Python Exception types as specified in the following table:

New in PyXLL 5.9

To pass errors as argument or return types, as well as using the var type the explicit exception type can be used. The exception type takes a type parameter cls to further specify the exception type.

Alternatively, a Python type annotation of Exception or other Exception type can be used.

Using the exception type explicitly is usually used when a function can accept or return either a value or an error. The union type can be used in conjunction with the exception type for this purpose.

The example below shows a function that can return a value or a ValueError exception:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func("bool x: union<str, exception<cls=ValueError>>")
def string_or_error(x):
    if x:
        return "OK!"
    return ValueError()

Below is an equivalent function written using Python type annotations:

from pyxll import xl_func

@xl_func
def string_or_error(x: bool) -> str | ValueError:
    if x:
        return "OK!"
    return ValueError()