It is a feature. SYLK is an older MS file format that came originally, I believe, from the first MS spreadsheet, MultiPlan. It is a text file that has, as you might guess, "ID" as the first two characters of the file. When Excel sees "ID", it thinks the file is in SYLK format. But, since the other required SYLK codes are missing, Excel generates the file open error you are seeing.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q215591 http://netghost.narod.ru/gff/graphics/summary/micsylk.htm Malcolm -----Original Message----- From: Lum, David [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 3:24 PM To: NT 2000 Discussions Subject: [OT] reverse Excel Easter egg (kind of) We have someone here who does a lot of data mining, which includes output to a .CSV file that is later opened in Excel. Under some conditions Excel would generate an error opening the file, yet it was possible to open this file in Notepad and nothing looked amiss. This person is quite good at complex Excel macro/VB functions. They tried different PC's (and Excel versions) to determine it wasn't an Excel issue and that it was the file itself causing problems (as well as a gazillion other ideas). If you have Excel, open Notepad type IDIOT (in capitals), save it as .CSV and open with Excel. Dimes to dollars you get a "SYLK: file format is not valid" message. Now make it a lower case idiot. Save, then open with Excel. It will open fine. Excel obviously takes exception to "ID" in caps as the first two characters of a file. The beginning of our .CSV file looked like this: ID,Name,Variable .... Kind of weird, but is it a bug or is it a feature? At some level I can understand a program looking for "ID" at the beginning of a file, but I'd think it wouldn't be too uncommon for ID to be the first column in a data table. Dave Lum - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sr. Network Specialist - Textron Financial 503-675-5510 ------ You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%% ------ You are subscribed as [email protected] Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
