SAS - Execute Find and Replace in an Excel File via DDE

Question

I am trying to write a SAS program to do a find and replace in an excel file via DDE. Specifically, I am trying to search the header row for spaces between the strings (i.e., " ") and replace them with no spaces (i.e., "").

For example, if I have a cell that contains "Test Name" I want to do a find and replace to make it "TestName".

This is what I have:

options noxwait noxsync;

/* Open Excel */
x '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\excel.exe"';
filename cmds dde 'excel|system';
data _null_;
    x=sleep(5);
run;

/* Open File and Manipulate*/
data _null_; 
    file cmds; 
    put '[open("C:\filename.xls")]'; 
    put '[select("R1")]';
    put '[formula.replace(" ","",1,,false,false)]'; 
run;

/*Close File*/
data _null_;
    file cmds;
    put '[FILE-CLOSE("C:\filename.xls")]';
    put '[QUIT()]';
run;

The find and replace function is not working. I get the following in my log after it reads that statement:

NOTE: The file CMDS is:
    DDE Session,
    SESSION=excel|system,RECFM=V,LRECL=256

ERROR: DDE session not ready.
FATAL: Unrecoverable I/O error detected in the execution of the DATA step program.  
    Aborted during the EXECUTION phase.
NOTE: 2 records were written to the file CMDS.
    The minimum record length was 21.
    The maximum record length was 70.
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
    real time           0.63 seconds
    cpu time            0.00 seconds

Any suggestions?

Also, does anyone know what the parameters in the formula.replace statement are? I just know the first and second are what you want to find and what you want to replace it with. I am struggling to find any documentation.

Answer 1

My suggestion is to write an excel (VBA) macro to do this, then call that macro; that gives you not only a far superior IDE to write your code in, to get contextual clues and such, but also gives you a lot more control. You can call macros from separate workbooks, so even if this is something you have to do repeatedly (I assume so), you can put this in a 'macro' template workbook that you open up separately from the automated file.

Answer 2

http://www.lexjansen.com/wuss/2007/ApplicationsDevelopment/APP_SmithC_ImportingExcelFiles.pdf

If you enter the path or filename incorrectly, Excel will fail to open your workbook. You will get an error message in the SAS log that looks like the following:

NOTE: The file DDECMD is:
      DDE Session,
      SESSION=excel|system,RECFM=V,LRECL=256
ERROR: DDE session not ready.
FATAL: Unrecoverable I/O error detected in the execution of the data step program.
       Aborted during the EXECUTION phase.
NOTE: 0 records were written to the file DDECMD.
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.