topic Problem use x command to open Excel in SAS Procedures

Problem use x command to open Excel

Mike_Davis — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:31:37 GMT

Hello everyone,

I can open Excel console by useing the following SAS code:

options noxwait noxsync;

x '"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL"';

My question is:

if I want to use a macro variable express the location of Excel, then it will cause the problem:

options noxwait noxsync ;

%let aaa=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL;

x '"&aaa"'; /*This will cause problem*/

Please help!

Thanks!

Mike

Re: Problem use x command to open Excel

art297 — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:14:31 GMT

Mike: How about?:

options noxwait noxsync ;

%let aaa=%nrbquote("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL");

x &aaa;

Re: Problem use x command to open Excel

Mike_Davis — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:21:19 GMT

Thank you Art!

That works!

but I have a question,

&aaa can be explained to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL".

you use x &aaa; equal to use x "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL".

there missing a couple of '', why still work?

Thanks!

Mike

Re: Problem use x command to open Excel

Tom — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:38:53 GMT

The actual problem is with Windows (or really DOS) and not SAS. Your filename has embedded spaces. This can confuse DOS because you might mean that you want it to run the program "C:\Program" with two command line options of "Files\Microsoft" and "Office\Office12\EXCEL". To clarify for DOS what you mean you need to enclose the filename in quotes. SAS is stripping the outer quotes before passing the string to DOS.

So add an extra set of quotes.

You can double the interior quotes.

x """&aaa""";

Or use the QUOTE() function to do that for you:

x %sysfunc(quote("&aaa"));

I suspect that why the %BQUOTE() function worked is because it prevented SAS from stripping off the outer quotes before sending the filename to DOS.

Re: Problem use x command to open Excel

Ksharp — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 01:51:29 GMT

Or You can add the path of excel into environment variable PATH , then you can directly use command EXCEL .

x "excel" ;