SAS-L archives -- November 2002, week 4 (#245)

Date:	Tue, 26 Nov 2002 10:37:13 -0800
Reply-To:	"William W. Viergever" <wwvierg@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:	"SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:	"William W. Viergever" <wwvierg@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:	Re: Macro variables and X command
Comments:	To: Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
In-Reply-To:	<08B08C9FA5EBD311A2CC009027D5BF8102E2B539@remailnt2-re01.we stat.com>
Content-Type:	text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html> At 09:13 AM 11/26/2002 -0500, Ian Whitlock wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Mark, One time honored solution is indicated by    %let fn = c:\junk\this is data to be deleted.txt ;    x "type ""&fn""" ; The problem with    %let fn = 'c:\junk\this is data to be deleted.txt' ;    x "type '&fn'" ; is that on my system Windows 98 the message "TOO MANY PARAMETERS" is returned.  I think it probably has something to do with the fact that single quotes are legitimate in filenames.</blockquote> Where is the Electric Horseman (aka: Kilo Volt) when we need him, eh? Indeed, this *is* a bugger, and alas, I have no answer either ... just some observations. Using Win 2K Pro ... 1st off, even in a Command Prompt (i.e., DOS box), starting at C:>, I could not get the START command: START "F:\My Documents\Excel\Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS" to work. Typing START /?  gives: non-executable files may be invoked through their file association just     by typing the name of the file as a command.  (e.g.  WORD.DOC would     launch the application associated with the .DOC file extension).     See the ASSOC and FTYPE commands for how to create these     associations from within a command script. which to me implies that it should, however I suspect it only works when you're in the same directory, for if I changed drives to F: and directories to "My Documents\Excel" and then issued: "Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS"Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS" then Excel would start and load that spreadsheet. I could also issue the following command: "D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe" "F:\My Documents\Excel\Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS" and again, Excel would start and load that spreadsheet. .... So, in SAS (v8.2), I tried options noxsync mprint mlogic symbolgen ; %let exe     = "D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe" ; %let xlsfile = "F:\My Documents\Excel\Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS" ; x "&exe &xlsfile" ; *-- x "D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe" &xlsfile" ; *-- x ""D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe"" &xlsfile" ; *-- x '"D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe" "F:\My Documents\Excel\Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS"' ; *-- x 'f: & cd "My Documents\Excel" & "Final 00-01 OBRA figures.XLS"' ; and the x "&exe &xlsfile" worked. Note: neither of the first two commented-out X-statements worked (when un-commented-out of course <g>); also if you look these two in the Enhanced Editor you will see the differing colors that should give a hint that it would not work beforehand: x "D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe" &xlsfile" ; and x ""D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe"" &xlsfile" ; Also, the latter two commented-out X-statements did work (i.e., w/ no macro var being used). Thus is it appears that since you've got to have the X-statement in double quotes to get the macro var to resolve, that precludes any other use of double quotes within that X-statement. Lastly, noting that x ""D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe"" &xlsfile" ; from above didn't work (basically seeing x "" as meaningless), I tried: x """D:\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe""&xlsfile" ; which did open Excel, however, the spreadheet was not. HTH <div>------------------------------------------------------------</div> <div>William W. Viergever          Voice  : (916) 483-8398</div> <div>Viergever & Associates        Fax    : (916) 486-1488</div> <div>Sacramento, CA 95825          E-mail : wwvierg@attglobal.net</div> <div>------------------------------------------------------------</div> </html>

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