topic Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL in SAS Programming

ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 18:54:10 GMT

Does anyone know how to output 'equal to' sign to excel file using ODS tagsets.

compute equalsign2 / character length=2;
equalsign2 = "=";
endcomp;

This does not work because it considers it to be a formula

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

FreelanceReinh — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 19:03:21 GMT

Have you tried this?

equalsign2 = "'=";

(I'm only guessing. I don't have Excel installed on my SAS workstation.)

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 19:11:39 GMT

yes i have. but then when i open the excel file it appears as '=

the sign quote disapears only when you go to that cell and move out of it

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

FreelanceReinh — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 20:51:11 GMT

What will be the purpose of the equals sign in the Excel cell, if not the beginning of a formula?

My Excel 2013 accepts a (manually entered) single equals sign without any problem. Therefore, I assume that in your case there will be some text to the right of the equals sign (a combination which would indeed be interpreted as a formula). Is this true?

An expression like " =abc" (without quotation marks, but with a leading blank) does not seem to be interpreted as a formula. Would this be an option?

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:02:38 GMT

The purpose of puting the equal to sign is to display 2 + 2 = 4

I need to display this statement as it is.

they all are in different cells and there is no text after the equal as you see in the example given

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

FreelanceReinh — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:25:55 GMT

Thanks for the clarification. What exactly is the issue (e.g. error message) when you put the single equals sign into a cell?

If the " =" (equals sign preceded by a space) is not acceptable for you, we could try a variety of other ASCII characters (from the code range 0, ..., 31) as replacements for the space (ASCII 32). I've just written all of these together with an equals sign into individual cells of an Excel sheet and several of them seem to be totally invisible (i.e. do not even appear as a blank space to the left of the equals sign, neither in Excel, nor in Notepad). ASCII 31 (hex 1F) is one of these. So, maybe this would be a candidate:

equalsign2 = '1F3D'x;

('3D'x is the equals sign in hexadecimal notation.)

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:28:42 GMT

Thank you for your support.

Below is the message output to a log file. I'm using SAS University Edition.

Actually it is considering the equal sign as the beginning of a formula.

compute equalsign / character length=4 ;
equalsign = '3D'x;
endcomp;

XML Spreadsheet Warning in Table
REASON: Bad Value
FILE: C:\Myfile.xls
GROUP: Row
TAG: Cell
ATTRIB: Formula
VALUE: =

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

FreelanceReinh — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:39:27 GMT

Ok, I see. Have you tried '1F3D'x (or '1E3D'x or '1D3D'x or ...)?

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:51:07 GMT

YES JUST TRIED THANKS.

USING THESE 3, IT DISPLAYED

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:55:47 GMT

going to bed now, will catch ya tomorrow

thanks a million.

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Ksharp — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 01:15:47 GMT

How about this :

ods tagsets.excelxp file='c:\temp\xyz.xml';
proc report data=sashelp.class nowd;
column name age equalsign ;
define name/display;
define age/display;
define equalsign /computed;
compute equalsign / character length=4 ;
   equalsign = '09'x||'=';
endcomp;
run;
ods tagsets.excelxp close;

Re: ODS OUTPUT 'EQUAL TO' CHARACTER TO EXCEL

Sanjay_M — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 18:40:29 GMT

That worked beautifully

Thanks a lot.