How does Read Excel Advanced handle mixed numeric and text values internally?

What users observe

Columns with mixed values behave inconsistently.


Sparkflows’ column-level decision model

Sparkflows makes decisions at the column level, not per cell.

  • If all sampled values are numeric → numeric type

  • If mixed numeric and text → STRING

  • If numeric type chosen and text appears later → null

Sparkflows does not change column type mid-stream.


Why this matters

Dynamic type switching would:

  • Break Spark schemas

  • Make pipelines unpredictable

  • Introduce silent failures


Recommendation

Separate mixed-purpose columns in Excel, or enforce schema explicitly.