Re: Import an Excel file

Question

Serdar,
There are three approaches to this problem
(a) use the excel spreadsheet as an ODBC data source
(b) read the excel spreadsheet as a tab delimited text file
(c) use OLE
(a) this requires defining column headers for each "section" of data in the
spreasheet, and
naming each "section" of data. Thus it works for spreadsheets where you
have tight control
over the formatting & content, and not for arbitrary spreasheets. There
are numerous drawbacks
to this approach, most notably that the ODBC datasource controlled by
the ODBC Manager
sets the file name, and not the DBResourceManager (you have to copy your
spreadsheet into
a fixed name, hope the other one isn't open in another session, etc etc)
Blech.
(b) this requires a manual step which is to read the spreadsheet into Excel
and save it to a
different format, or have the spreadsheets saved as comma separated
values format (csv),
then it is simply a parsing problem...
(c) this requires that you sublaunch Excel through OLE and access the data
somehow
(issue a "select all", "copy" - then paste the data into some text
field in Forte and read it,
or programmatically access the spreadsheets boundaries and individual
cell data.
Sounds like this would work best for "arbitrary" spreadsheets for
which special formatting
or exporting would be problematic.
We have had success (using the word loosely here) with a and b and not had
occasion to do c, though it will probably yield the best flexibility for
the effort you'll have to
put into getting it to work. The common perception about doing OLE
integration is that
you are at the mercy of the application to which you are integrating - the
OLE APIs are not
all universally well designed, implemented, nor documented, however since
this is Excel you
might have lots of retail technical books to help you.
Part of the problem is that the Excel spreadsheet file is in a proprietary
format only understood
by Excel, therefore just "reading" the file will give you a whole bunch of
garbage.
Good luck,
John
At 03:55 PM 1/15/99 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
Can anyone tell me how to import an Excel file from any directory into the
Forte array?
I need to do following scenario:
In the Forte application when the user click on the "Select" button user
selects an Excel file from the explorer window. Than I need to read that
Excel file and load the data into the Forte array, and I'm going to use the
data in the program.
If anyone has experience or any suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks
Serdar Askin
To unsubscribe, email '[email protected]' with
'unsubscribe forte-users' as the body of the message.
Searchable thread archive <URL:http://pinehurst.sageit.com/listarchive/>*******************************************************
John Jamison [email protected]
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer 415 399 7212
Sage IT Partners, Inc. fax: [phone]
44 Montgomery Street
Suite 3200
San Francisco, CA 94104
The Leaders in Internet Enabled Business Change
* A Metamor Worldwide Company *
To unsubscribe, email '[email protected]' with
'unsubscribe forte-users' as the body of the message.
Searchable thread archive <URL:http://pinehurst.sageit.com/listarchive/>

Answer 1

Just thinking off the top of my head here, would a variation of (c) work.
Launch Excel and trigger a macro that outputs the spreadsheet data as a CSV
file to a known location. Once that completes, it becames a parsing problem
as stated below. Or, extending this thought, if you have control over the
spreadsheet, establish a macro to output the data in CSV format. And
include in the procedure for accessing the spreadsheet a requirement to run
this macro after every data change. (Maybe the macro initiation can be
automated too.)
my 1 1/2 cents worth....
/\/\ark /\/ichols
John Jamison <[email protected]> on 01/17/99 12:17:57 PM
Please respond to John Jamison <[email protected]>
To: "Askin, Serdar H" <[email protected]>
cc: [email protected](bcc: Mark Nichols/SEH)
Subject: Re: Import an Excel file
Serdar,
There are three approaches to this problem
(a) use the excel spreadsheet as an ODBC data source
(b) read the excel spreadsheet as a tab delimited text file
(c) use OLE
(a) this requires defining column headers for each "section" of data in the
spreasheet, and
naming each "section" of data. Thus it works for spreadsheets where you
have tight control
over the formatting & content, and not for arbitrary spreasheets. There
are numerous drawbacks
to this approach, most notably that the ODBC datasource controlled by
the ODBC Manager
sets the file name, and not the DBResourceManager (you have to copy your
spreadsheet into
a fixed name, hope the other one isn't open in another session, etc etc)
Blech.
(b) this requires a manual step which is to read the spreadsheet into Excel
and save it to a
different format, or have the spreadsheets saved as comma separated
values format (csv),
then it is simply a parsing problem...
(c) this requires that you sublaunch Excel through OLE and access the data
somehow
(issue a "select all", "copy" - then paste the data into some text
field in Forte and read it,
or programmatically access the spreadsheets boundaries and individual
cell data.
Sounds like this would work best for "arbitrary" spreadsheets for
which special formatting
or exporting would be problematic.
We have had success (using the word loosely here) with a and b and not had
occasion to do c, though it will probably yield the best flexibility for
the effort you'll have to
put into getting it to work. The common perception about doing OLE
integration is that
you are at the mercy of the application to which you are integrating - the
OLE APIs are not
all universally well designed, implemented, nor documented, however since
this is Excel you
might have lots of retail technical books to help you.
Part of the problem is that the Excel spreadsheet file is in a proprietary
format only understood
by Excel, therefore just "reading" the file will give you a whole bunch of
garbage.
Good luck,
John
At 03:55 PM 1/15/99 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
Can anyone tell me how to import an Excel file from any directory into the
Forte array?
I need to do following scenario:
In the Forte application when the user click on the "Select" button user
selects an Excel file from the explorer window. Than I need to read that
Excel file and load the data into the Forte array, and I'm going to usethe
data in the program.
If anyone has experience or any suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks
Serdar Askin
To unsubscribe, email '[email protected]' with
'unsubscribe forte-users' as the body of the message.
Searchable thread archive <URL:http://pinehurst.sageit.com/listarchive/>*******************************************************
John Jamison [email protected]
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer 415 399 7212
Sage IT Partners, Inc. fax: 415 399
7002
44 Montgomery Street
Suite 3200
San Francisco, CA 94104
The Leaders in Internet Enabled Business Change
* A Metamor Worldwide Company *
To unsubscribe, email '[email protected]' with
'unsubscribe forte-users' as the body of the message.
Searchable thread archive <URL:http://pinehurst.sageit.com/listarchive/>
To unsubscribe, email '[email protected]' with
'unsubscribe forte-users' as the body of the message.
Searchable thread archive <URL:http://pinehurst.sageit.com/listarchive/>