title: Reading string value from Excel with HSSF but it's double
body: <p>I'm using HSSF-POI for reading excel data. The problem is I have values in a cell that look like a number but really are strings. If I look at the format cell in Excel, it says the type is "text". Still the HSSF Cell thinks it's numeric. How can I get the value as a string?</p>
  
  <p>If I try to use <code>cell.getRichStringValue</code>, I get exception; if <code>cell.toString</code>, it's not the exact same value as in Excel sheet.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit</strong>: until this gets resolved, I'll use </p>
  
  <pre><code>new BigDecimal(cell.getNumericCellValue()).toString()
  </code></pre>