9.4.1 Spreadsheet Files

GET DATA /TYPE={GNM, ODS}
        /FILE={’file_name’}
        /SHEET={NAME ’sheet_name’, INDEX n}
        /CELLRANGE={RANGE ’range’, FULL}
        /READNAMES={ON, OFF}
        /ASSUMEDSTRWIDTH=n.

Gnumeric spreadsheets (http://gnumeric.org), and spreadsheets in OpenDocument format (http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:OpenDocument/Software) can be read using the GET DATA command. Use the TYPE subcommand to indicate the file’s format. /TYPE=GNM indicates Gnumeric files, /TYPE=ODS indicates OpenDocument. The FILE subcommand is mandatory. Use it to specify the name file to be read. All other subcommands are optional.

The format of each variable is determined by the format of the spreadsheet cell containing the first datum for the variable. If this cell is of string (text) format, then the width of the variable is determined from the length of the string it contains, unless the ASSUMEDSTRWIDTH subcommand is given.

The SHEET subcommand specifies the sheet within the spreadsheet file to read. There are two forms of the SHEET subcommand. In the first form, /SHEET=name sheet_name, the string sheet_name is the name of the sheet to read. In the second form, /SHEET=index idx, idx is a integer which is the index of the sheet to read. The first sheet has the index 1. If the SHEET subcommand is omitted, then the command reads the first sheet in the file.

The CELLRANGE subcommand specifies the range of cells within the sheet to read. If the subcommand is given as /CELLRANGE=FULL, then the entire sheet is read. To read only part of a sheet, use the form /CELLRANGE=range 'top_left_cell:bottom_right_cell'. For example, the subcommand /CELLRANGE=range 'C3:P19' reads columns C–P, and rows 3–19 inclusive. If no CELLRANGE subcommand is given, then the entire sheet is read.

If /READNAMES=ON is specified, then the contents of cells of the first row are used as the names of the variables in which to store the data from subsequent rows. This is the default. If /READNAMES=OFF is used, then the variables receive automatically assigned names.

The ASSUMEDSTRWIDTH subcommand specifies the maximum width of string variables read from the file. If omitted, the default value is determined from the length of the string in the first spreadsheet cell for each variable.