[R] RODBC and Excel in Widows

[R. Heberto Ghezzo]

Hello, I have some problems with RODBC and Excel in Win98
I am using R 1.6.2 and just upgraded RODBC to the last version on CRAN.
I have an Excel file with columns Number, Name, Sex, Age, FEV1 on Sheet
1 and Number, Age, FEV1, Name, Sex on Sheet 2.
Now I open the channel to the file
> chan1 <- odbcConnectExcel("c:/testOdbc.xls")
> tables(chan1)
and the list appears with the 2 tables
> aa -> sqlFetch(chan1,"Sheet1")
and aa has the Number, Name and Sex columns correct but Age and FEV1 are
all NAs
> bb -> sqlfetch(chan1,"Sheet2")
and bb is correct!
So all numeric columns after a column of characters become NAs
Is this an Excel problem or an sql problem.? I did not find anything in
the r-help archives relative to this problem.
Thanks for any help