Opening a saved file with Excell(or any other EXE) with code

[Mike Trader]

I have created a .csv file with my code in my .EXE.

If I dbl click it, Excell will open it and everything is great. How can avoid the dbl click?

ie, how can i tell Excell "open MyFile.csv"


PS. does anyone know how to save the FORMULAS from excell to a text file so that my EXE can create a .csv file with them in it?

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Kind Regards
Mike

[Bern Ertl]

I haven't tried it, but have you tried shelling to excel?

Ie.

SHELL ExcelPath$ + "EXCEL.EXE MYFILE.CSV", 1



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Bernard Ertl

[Paul Squires]

Mike,

I have some VB code that creates an XLS Excel spreadsheet (BIFF 2.1)
format. You could port that code to PB. However, it does not
do fomulas. It can be found at:
http://www.planetsourcecode.com/xq/A...s/ShowCode.htm



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Paul Squires
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Trader]

Thanks Paul, I will look at the code tomorrow.

The first 59 rows (64Columns wide) are all formula
(The next 2000 lines are data)

I send formula in a .csv file as "=myfomula".

Is it possible to do the same thing with your code?

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Kind Regards
Mike

[Edwin Knoppert]

On my site IN the helpfile, you can find code to find an app by extension.
In this case WORD.

A slight rebuild for you..


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[Paul Squires]

Mike,

Unfortunately not. You can not save formulas with my Excel code.
I have tried to figure out how to parse and save them in the correct
format but it is over my head.



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Paul Squires
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Trader]

Bern,

The Shell works but only if MyFile.csv is in the default folder (My Documents) when excell boots up.

After much experimenting I cant find a way to tell Excell to look in another folder. any ideas?

If all three files are in My Documents, then a new instance of excell is launched and all 3 files are opend in that one new instance.

SHELLResult = SHELL("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe Temp1.csv Temp2.csv Temp3.csv", 1)


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Kind Regards
Mike

[Bern Ertl]

I haven't tried it, but I think something like:

SHELLResult = SHELL( ExcelPath$ + "Excel.exe " + File1Path$ + "Temp1.csv " + File2Path$ + "Temp2.csv " + File3Path$ + "Temp3.csv", 1)

should work. Of course this assumes that you can find and assign the full
directory paths for the files to the File#Path$ variables...



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Bernard Ertl

[Lance Edmonds]

Long File Name (LFN) paths may need to be enclosed in double quotes, ie:

ExcelPath$ = "C:\Program Files\Office 2000\Excel\"
SHELLResult = SHELL( ExcelPath$ + "Excel.exe """ + File1Path$ + "Temp1.csv"" """ + _
    File2Path$ + "Temp2.csv"" """ + _
    File3Path$ + "Temp3.csv""", 1)

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Peter P Stephensen]

Use ShellExecute("open",...). Then you dont need the Excel-path.

Regards
Peter

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[Stuart McLachlan]

Originally posted by Mike Trader:
Bern,

The Shell works but only if MyFile.csv is in the default folder (My Documents) when excell boots up.

After much experimenting I cant find a way to tell Excell to look in another folder. any ideas?

If all three files are in My Documents, then a new instance of excell is launched and all 3 files are opend in that one new instance.

SHELLResult = SHELL("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe Temp1.csv Temp2.csv Temp3.csv", 1)

I use this function to locate and invoke the default open application for an extension:

FUNCTION DISPLAYFILE (myfile AS STRING) AS LONG
LOCAL retval AS LONG
LOCAL hkey AS LONG
LOCAL opendialog AS ASCIIZ * 256
LOCAL extension AS ASCIIZ * 256
LOCAL readercmd AS ASCIIZ * 256
extension = "." & PARSE$(myfile,".",-1)
'Get Open Command Line from registry
retval = RegOpenKeyEx(%HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,extension,0,%key_query_value,hkey)
retval = regqueryvalueex(hkey,"",0,%reg_sz,opendialog,256)
retval = regclosekey(hkey)
extension = opendialog & "\SHELL\OPEN\command"
retval = RegOpenKeyEx(%HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,extension,0,%key_query_value,hkey)
retval = regqueryvalueex(hkey,"",0,%reg_sz,readercmd,256)
retval = regclosekey(hkey)
REPLACE "%1" WITH myfile IN readercmd
retval = SHELL(readercmd)
END FUNCTION




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Check out my free software at http://www.lexacorp.com.pg

[Mike Trader]

Dear Stuart,

you Live In Papua New Guinea!? cool. Can I come visit?

Thx for your function. could you tell me how to use tho pls?

If I send it MyFile.csv it launches excell ok but then how would you go about getting excell to open MyFile.csv?

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Kind Regards
Mike

[Mike Trader]

Lance,

That worx, thx.

The only thing is that it looks like excel is in different folders depending on the version etc and if it came with office etc etc.

For portability, is there some way to determine ExcelPath$ in the code?

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Kind Regards
Mike

[Peter P Stephensen]

You dont need ExcelPath! Use ShellExecute...it is precisely the same as double clicking...

	ShellExecute 0,"open", "P:\psp\PBDLL60\Projects\test\test.csv ", byval 0,byval 0, %SW_SHOWNORMAL

Regards
Peter

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[This message has been edited by Peter P Stephensen (edited March 02, 2001).]

[Edwin Knoppert]

Someone missed my post i guess?

The code DOES retrieve the fileversion path eand exe etc..


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[Lance Edmonds]

Yes, you can use ShellExecute().

Alternatively, since you are wanting to open a file that already exists on disk, you can use FindExecutable() to get the path and filename of the associated application for a given file type, then simply use SHELL to launch the app with the filename as a parameter (per above).

#COMPILE EXE
#INCLUDE "WIN32API.INC"
 
FUNCTION PBMAIN
    DIM ExeName AS ASCIIZ * %MAX_PATH
    DIM File$, Folder$, Result AS LONG

    ' Create the file to ensure the API will succeed
    File$ = "FILENAME.XLS"
    Folder$ = "C:\"
    OPEN Folder$ + File$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1
    CLOSE #1
 
    Result = FindExecutable(BYCOPY File$, BYCOPY Folder$, ExeName)
    MSGBOX "SHELL """+ ExeName + " " + File$ + """"
 
    ' Kill the temp file we used to explore this API
    KILL Folder$ + File$
END FUNCTION

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Trader]

Edwin, I would love to check out your site and your example. Whats the URL?

Lance, thx for the example. I would never have figured out the BYVAL thing or known that the returned:
pointer to buffer for string for executable file
is converted to a string by declaring the name as ASCIIZ!

One problem tho, It turns out I have 2 versions of excel, 97 and 2000. I want to shell to the 2000 ver because it can handle the complex formulas i use. However it finds the 97 ver (probably because it is the first one it comes across while searching the drive).

Is there a way to find the path to a specific .exe? (ie excel2k.exe as opposed to excel97.exe.

Or perhaps there is a way to find the ver with the newest creation date.

I realize this may be too diffiult in which case I can just rename excel97.exe to excel.exee and it wont get found

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Kind Regards
Mike

[Lance Edmonds]

I would say a registry search would be the answer, or you could do a brute-force scan of the hard drive(s).

Having more than one copy of Excel installed seems like a waste of good disk real estate to me! How many folks would be likely to have such a set up?

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Lance Edmonds]

One more thing...

Lance, thx for the example. I would never have figured out the BYVAL thing or known that the returned:
pointer to buffer for string for executable file
is converted to a string by declaring the name as ASCIIZ!

It's not "converted" as such... we passed the ASCIIZ string buffer BYREF which actually passes a pointer (whose target is the string) to the API. No actual "conversion" took place.

It's similar for the BYCOPY... the API is expecting pointers to string buffers, so by passing it BYCOPY we send the API a pointer to a raw copy of string data. If I uses ASCIIZ strings for all 3 parameters, the BYCOPY would not be required.

You may want to study the manual recarding parameter passing - you'll need to know about it when dealing with calling API functions, and it is especially helpful if you want to convert code from C or VB to PowerBASIC.

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Edwin Knoppert]

On my site (allways see profile) you find a helpfile wich contains a topic "Check the version of your word processor."
You simply substitute DOC for CSV.
http://pbsoft.bkln.net/vhindex.html




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