topic Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands in SAS Programming

Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

acooper — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 19:50:47 GMT

Hello There,

I am attempting to open up an excel document using an x command. I am currently not getting any errors, the code is running to completion, however, nothing is happening upon completion of the code.

The document lives on a shared directory, and is in a virtual environment. We are not sure if either of these are causing the issue. Other x commands are functioning (creating or deleting items), so we can at least confirm that the xcmd functionality is working.

Any recommendations would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

Code used below:

proc options option=xcmd; run;

options noxwait noxsync;

x '"directory\x_experiments\DelimitedExample"';

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

Reeza — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 19:56:02 GMT

Did you test your x command in a command window? That doesn't look correct to open an XLSX file, there's no file extension for one or a filename.

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

acooper — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 20:11:37 GMT

Howdy!

the file name is included (DelimitedExample). I had seen the extension left off in other threads, so I had left it off in my experiments to get it to work.

playing around with the command prompt now to try and get it to work in a different file first. would I be using .exe or .xlsx?

thank you!

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

SASKiwi — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 20:35:30 GMT

Where is your SAS program running? This will only work if it is running on your PC. If the program is running on a remote SAS server, then you can't start a local Excel session from there.

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

Reeza — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 20:41:17 GMT

Your slashes indicate unix, are you working on a unix machine and does it have Excel installed?

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

acooper — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:30:33 GMT

okay, that may unfortunately be (one of) the issues. Our system is running on a virtual environment and not on the main computer.

as noted earlier, other x commands are working correctly (creating or destroying folders and txt documents), is there a way to tell which x commands would or would not work on a virtual environment?

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

acooper — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:31:34 GMT

excel is installed, this is being run on windows, not unix. what would you change in the formatting?

thanks!

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

Reeza — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:32:20 GMT

The x commands are executed in the virtual environment and will only affect the VM. Anything locally will not be accessible.

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

ballardw — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:45:21 GMT

FWIW when I run

x 'x:\data\junk.xlsx';

the desired file opens. This is running SAS locally on a Windows10 machine.

No file extension, i.e. the XLSX part and the only thing that happens is a command prompt window opening.

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

acooper — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:48:00 GMT

that is fine, I don't need to open anything on the local machine, im trying to open a document that also lives in the virtual environment.

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

SASKiwi — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 00:59:55 GMT

As long as you are logging on to a Windows session on your virtual PC, then running SAS within this session then opening an Excel session should work. In essence Excel needs a display, virtual or real, to successfully start. No display, no Excel. This is different from using SAS to read or write Excel workbooks. In this case you aren't using Excel sessions.

Re: Excel Document Not Opening with X Commands

acooper — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 13:21:43 GMT

thank you!

I will continue to play around with it and return if I am still having issues.