Read all rows and columns in MS project via MPXJ library using python

Question

So am trying to read .mpp file in python using MPXJ library, i was able to get task Name, respective task start/end date etc. I want to get the respective type for these datas as well. And also I want to read all the columns and their respective types as well including their dependency attachments and any other custom fields as well. I couldn't find this in their documentation which function i should use hence asking here

Whole code

import jpype
import mpxj

jpype.startJVM()
from net.sf.mpxj.reader import UniversalProjectReader
project = UniversalProjectReader().read('example.mpp')

print("Tasks")
tasks = project.getTasks()

for task in tasks:
    print(task.getID().toString() + "\t" + task.getName() + "\t" + task.getStart() + "\t" + task.getFinish() + "\t" + task.getDuration())

Custom fields code which is not working

customFields = project.getCustomFields()
print(customFields)

Answer 1

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of examples in Python for MPXJ yet, but I'm working on it! In the meantime I've adapted your code to show how you can retrieve details of all the custom fields present in a project, then filter those down just to task fields, and then finally use the field type to dynamically retrieve the values for the custom fields, and also use the "alias" as a column heading:

import jpype
import mpxj

jpype.startJVM()

from net.sf.mpxj.reader import UniversalProjectReader
from net.sf.mpxj import FieldTypeClass
from net.sf.mpxj import TaskField

project = UniversalProjectReader().read(
    'project-with-custom-fields.mpp')

# Just to get started, let's see what tasks we have
print("Tasks")
tasks = project.getTasks()

for task in tasks:
    print(task.getID().toString() + "\t" +
          task.getName())
print()

# OK, so what custom field so we have?
print("Custom Fields")
for field in project.getCustomFields():
    print(field.getFieldType().getFieldTypeClass().toString() + "\t" +
          field.getFieldType().toString() + "\t" +
          field.getAlias())
print()

# Ah! We have custom field definitions here for different entity types
# (tasks, resources etc). Let's filter that list down to just task custom
# fields and print those.
task_custom_fields = list(filter(lambda field: field.getFieldType(
).getFieldTypeClass() == FieldTypeClass.TASK, project.getCustomFields()))

print("Task Custom Fields")
for field in task_custom_fields:
    print(field.getFieldType().getFieldTypeClass().toString() + "\t" +
          field.getFieldType().toString() + "\t" + field.getAlias())

# Let's build a report showing the ID, Name and any custom fields for each task.
# First we'll build a list of column headings and a list of field types
column_names = ['ID', 'Name']
column_types = [TaskField.ID, TaskField.NAME]
for field in task_custom_fields:
    column_names.append(str(field.getAlias()))
    column_types.append(field.getFieldType())

# Now we can print the column headings, then iterate through the tasks
# and retrieve the values using the field types.
print('\t'.join(column_names))
for task in tasks:
    column_values = map(lambda type: str(
        task.getCachedValue(type)), column_types)
    print(task.getID().toString() + "\t" +
          task.getName() + "\t" +
          '\t'.join(column_values))

jpype.shutdownJVM()

As the Python version of MPXJ is a wrapper around the underlying Java version, you'll find a lot of useful details about the classes and methods available by consulting the Javadoc http://www.mpxj.org/apidocs/index.html .