[R] Updating a worksheet in Excel file using RODBC

[Prof Brian Ripley]

The problem is that way the ODBC driver exposes table names is not valid 
SQL, and nor is the way quoting has to be used.  You can get around this 
via direct SQL sent by sqlQuery.  In addition, by default the Excel ODBC 
driver gives you read-only access to worksheets.

Searching the list archives, would help, for example this answer:

https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2007-March/127851.html

Making a wrapper interface in RODBC is on my TODO list, but not anywhere 
near the top.


On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Moshe Olshansky wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I have no problem reading Excel files (each worksheet in the file is a "table" which can be read - at least in my case).
>
> What I would like to do is to read such a table, change it (just the contents, not the format) and write it back, and this I can not do.  I am getting the following error messages (3 slightly different attempts):
>
>> sqlSave(con, x, tablename = "Chimaera20_3years$", append = FALSE,
> +         rownames = FALSE, colnames = TRUE,
> +         verbose = TRUE, oldstyle = FALSE,safer=FALSE)
> Query: CREATE TABLE Chimaera20_3years$  (Date varchar(255), 000Tax varchar(255), 1500Tax varchar(255), 3000Tax varchar(255), 4650Tax varchar(255))
> Error in sqlSave(con, x, tablename = "Chimaera20_3years$", append = FALSE,  :
>        [RODBC] ERROR: Could not SQLExecDirect
> 37000 -3551 [Microsoft][ODBC Excel Driver] Syntax error in CREATE TABLE statement.
>
>> sqlSave(con, x, tablename = "[Chimaera20_3years$]", append = FALSE,
> +         rownames = FALSE, colnames = TRUE,
> +         verbose = TRUE, oldstyle = FALSE,safer=FALSE)
> Query: CREATE TABLE [Chimaera20_3years$]  (Date varchar(255), 000Tax varchar(255), 1500Tax varchar(255), 3000Tax varchar(255), 4650Tax varchar(255))
> Error in sqlSave(con, x, tablename = "[Chimaera20_3years$]", append = FALSE,  :
>        [RODBC] ERROR: Could not SQLExecDirect
> 37000 -3553 [Microsoft][ODBC Excel Driver] Syntax error in field definition.
>
>> sqlSave(con, x, tablename = "[Chimaera20_3years]", append = FALSE,
> +         rownames = FALSE, colnames = TRUE,
> +         verbose = TRUE, oldstyle = FALSE,safer=FALSE)
> Query: CREATE TABLE [Chimaera20_3years]  (Date varchar(255), 000Tax varchar(255), 1500Tax varchar(255), 3000Tax varchar(255), 4650Tax varchar(255))
> Error in sqlSave(con, x, tablename = "[Chimaera20_3years]", append = FALSE,  :
>        [RODBC] ERROR: Could not SQLExecDirect
> 37000 -3553 [Microsoft][ODBC Excel Driver] Syntax error in field definition.
>
> Am I doing it wrong way or is there a problem with the Excel driver?
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Moshe Olshansky
> Chimaera Capital Group
>
>
> Moshe Olshansky
>
> Chimaera Capital Limited
> Level 4 / 349 Collins Street
> Melbourne, Victoria 3000
> Phone: +613 8614 8400
> Fax: +613 8614 8410
> Email: molshansky at chimaeracapital.com
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595