Reg: Special Character Appearing in Excel O/P.

Question

I am getting excel output generated via an Oracle report (CSV format). In the excel output, I am getting a special character for TAB (Chr9, a box). Since user wants to sort the data, because of this character they are not able to sort data in sheet properly.
Can anyone suggest what could cause this special character to appear in the report output? I am looking from layout perspective also. Is this has something to do with the printing style applied to the concurrent program?
Thanks In advance.

Answer 1

I had the same problem and this is what I did, works great. You have the total control.
function BeforeReport return boolean is
fp text_io.file_type;
begin
-- creating a file name
:CP_filename := 'C:\Gap'||to_char(sysdate,'MMDDYYHHMISS')||'.csv';
-- Opening the file in write mode
fp := text_io.fopen(:CP_filename,'w');
-- writing the column headings into the file
text_io.put_line(fp,'"Platform","Sys#","GapType",');
text_io.fclose(fp);
return (TRUE);
end;
and then where ever it is suitable, depending on the requirement, write into file by opening it in the append mode.
function R_G_systemplatformFormatTrigge return boolean is
fp text_io.file_type;
begin
--     srw.message(99,:dname);
fp := text_io.fopen(:CP_filename,'a');
text_io.put(fp,'"' || :systemplatform || '",');
text_io.put(fp,'"' || to_char(:sysno) || '",');
text_io.put_line(fp,'"' || :CF_gaptype || '",');
text_io.fclose(fp);
return (TRUE);
end;
This works great. Hope this helps.