There is a potential problem with using an associations for CSV and the
problem may relate to the original question.  .
CSV files have 3 formats,

CSV (comma delimited) (*.csv) (Windows)
CSV (Macintosh)
CSV (OS/2 or MS-DOS)

The extension is the same but the format is !slightly! different, therefore
you are asking Xcell to Assume, and assuming is always a bad thing.  The
association only tells windows which application to launch. From there Xcell
must assume based on some internal rules, not because of the filename alone.
In your case Xcell assumed SYLK which may appear in its conversion rules
list before any csv rules.  In defense of M$ (Yuck, did I just say that?)
although a straight File|Open may work 99% of the time, it appears M$ knew
about the issues and provided and documented "Get External Data".

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Lum, David [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 12:14 PM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: RE: [OT] reverse Excel Easter egg (kind of)


Okay I overlooked two important parts of the test - I assumed 1) That your
PC associates .CSV's with Excel and if that condition was met I should have
2) stated "open the file by double-clicking on it".

My bad,
Dave "can't you read my mind?" Lum

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim McGowan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 09:07 AM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: RE: [OT] reverse Excel Easter egg (kind of)


Why would you open a text file from File\Open.  M$ provided Data\Get
External Data\Import Text File  which  worked fine for me (No Errors on your
test.) and provides the opportunity to fine tune the import.  


Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Seielstad [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 7:08 AM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: RE: [OT] reverse Excel Easter egg (kind of)


It opens fine, albeit with the error, when opening it via File | Open from
within Excel.

------------------------------------------------------
Roger D. Seielstad - MCSE
Sr. Systems Administrator
Inovis - Formerly Harbinger and Extricity
Atlanta, GA


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lum, David [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
> Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 4:24 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
> 
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