Storing/Using sheet name when reading excel

[R1j1t]

At present (0.37.3), when we read excel the name associated with table object is the file name. Can we change this behavior and instead save the sheet name (atleast when reading multi sheet excel)?

I had a use case to search by sheet name and had to make changes in the current XlsxReader for this.

Current

 book1.xlsx  
 A  |   B   |
-------------
 1  |   56  |
 2  |   78  |
 3  |  100  |
 4  |  122  |
 5  |  144  |
 6  |  166  |

 book1.xlsx 
 C  |  D   |
------------
 4  |  12  |
 5  |  32  |
 6  |  52  |
 7  |  72  |

Proposed

 sheet1
 A  |   B   |
-------------
 1  |   56  |
 2  |   78  |
 3  |  100  |
 4  |  122  |
 5  |  144  |
 6  |  166  |

 sheet2 
 C  |  D   |
------------
 4  |  12  |
 5  |  32  |
 6  |  52  |
 7  |  72  |

[benmccann]

This seems reasonable to me. What do you think @hallvard ?

[hallvard]

I think the reason I did it this way, was because the table name was used as a label in a UI. In that case the name of the file was more meaningful than the sheet name, particularly in a UI showing tables from several files. But in general, I agree that the sheet name may be better, and in the UI case you usually have access to the file name and can still use that as the label. The opposite is not the case, if you don't store the sheet name as the table's name, it's difficult to access it.

So I support the change. You could introduce a loading option that allowed to choose or even provide a pattern that could combine then, e.g. into book.xlsx#sheet1, but I don't think that should be introduced without someone asking for it (later).

[R1j1t]

Sure, let me complete it and create a pull request by sunday