XLSB Format

Read Excel Binary Workbooks (.xlsb) as flat row dictionaries (header from the first row). XLSB is read-only in this release.

Overview

Property	Value
Format id	xlsb
Class	XLSBIterable
Extensions	.xlsb
Read	Yes
Write	No
Extra	xlsb (pyxlsb)
Maturity	stable

File Extensions

• .xlsb — Excel Binary Workbook

Implementation Details

Reading

• Uses pyxlsb.open_workbook
• Requires a filename (streams not supported)
• Header keys come from the first sheet row unless keys is set
• Cell values are stringified
• list_tables() returns sheet names
• Select sheet with zero-based page; skip data rows after the header with start_line

Writing

Writing is not supported. Attempting to write raises WriteNotSupportedError.

Key Features

• Multi-sheet: choose sheet by index via page
• Explicit headers: optional keys
• Row skip: start_line after the header row

Usage

from iterable import open_iterable

with open_iterable("data.xlsb") as source:
    for row in source:
        print(row)

with open_iterable(
    "data.xlsb",
    iterableargs={"page": 1, "keys": ["name", "value"], "start_line": 0},
) as source:
    for row in source:
        print(row)

Record shape (keys from the first row or explicit keys):

{"name": "alpha", "value": "42"}

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Required	Description
page	int	0	No	Zero-based sheet index
keys	list[str]	first row	No	Explicit column names (skips header extraction)
start_line	int	0	No	Rows to skip after the header

Error Handling

• ImportError: Missing pyxlsb — install with pip install iterabledata[xlsb]
• ValueError: Stream input (XLSB requires a filename; stream is not supported)
• WriteNotSupportedError: Writing XLSB is not implemented
• FileNotFoundError / pyxlsb errors: missing path, invalid sheet index, or corrupt workbook

See Troubleshooting for more help.

Installation

pip install 'iterabledata[xlsb]'

Limitations

1. Read-only
2. Filename required (no streams)
3. Values are strings
4. Requires pyxlsb

Related Formats

• XLSX — Office Open XML workbooks
• XLS — legacy Excel
• Supported formats