topic Re: Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug? in SAS Programming

Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug?

xxformat_com — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:00:07 GMT

Hi,

I was wondering why

- hash are converted to a dot and

- dot are causing an issue

when used in a variable label exported in an Excel file

using the excel engine or dmbs=excel.

It works fine with dmbs=xlsx.

Is it just a reported bug?

libname demo excel "&demo./reporting/test.xlsx";

data demo.test (dblabel=yes);
label  x01 = '1 #test'
x2 = '2. test';
retain x01 1 x02 2 ;
run;

libname demo;

Re: Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug?

Ksharp — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:10:32 GMT

libname demo XLSX "&demo./reporting/test.xlsx";

Re: Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug?

Ksharp — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:12:06 GMT

EXCEL and XLS is very old engine ,it is designed for excel2003 ( test.xls ).

Re: Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug?

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:15:33 GMT

It seems to be a problem related to the Excel library engine (which uses MS software and is only available on Windows).

This code transferred the characters correctly:

ods excel file="/folders/myfolders/test.xlsx";

data test;
label
  x01 = '1 #test'
  x02 = '2. test'
;
retain x01 1 x02 2 ;
run;

proc print data=test label;
run;

ods excel close;

Re: Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug?

xxformat_com — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:16:35 GMT

So you agree like me that it is a bug in excel dbms. Thanks.

Re: Excel engine/dbms=excel - # and dot in variable label > bug?

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:18:47 GMT

Maybe it was a shortcoming in the old (pre-XLSX) format that needed to be addressed.