Excel XML Cell index problem

[Jesse Wu]

Trying to evaluate if XQuery is the right tool to use to process large
Excel workbook, XLS when save as XML:
<Workbook><Worksheet><Table>
<Row>
 <Cell>AAA</Cell>
 <Cell Index="5" HRef= "http:??...">YYY</Cell>
 .
 .
 <Cell Index="23">XXX</Cell>
 .
</Row>
<Row>
...
</Row>

My XQuery code is looping through each row then the cells in each row,
but unfortunately Microsoft Excel when save as XML skips empty cells,
as the example above in the 1st row, the cells(columns) from 2 to 4
were missing before the 2nd cell with Index="5" which means it's
actually column 5 (I was expecting to have 3 <Cell /> before it). Is
there a way to code this in Xquery?

My code:

let $pads : = 0
for $i in 1 to count($Row/Cell)
let $f := $i + $pads
return
<dummy>
{  xu:padcells($Row/Cell[$i], $f) }

{$tr/Cell[$i]}

</dummy>

};

declare function xu:padcells($cl, $f)
{
let $t := xs:integer($cl/@Index) -1
(: let $pads := $pads + ($f - $t )+ 1 is there a way to get the total
number of empty cells padded back to the calling code? :)
for $x in $f to $t
return
	<Cell Index="{$x}"></Cell>	
};

Thanks in advance for all your help.

-Jes