DDE Syntax within SAS

To use DDE in SAS, issue a FILENAME statement with the following syntax:

FILENAME fileref DDE 'DDE-triplet' <DDE-options>;

where:

fileref

is a valid fileref (as described in Referencing External Files).

DDE

is the device-type keyword that tells SAS that you want to use Dynamic Data Exchange.

'DDE-triplet'

is the name of the DDE external file.

DDE-options

can be any of the following:

COMMAND

allows remote commands to be issued to DDE server applications. For more information, see Controlling Another Application Using DDE.

HOTLINK

instructs SAS to use the DDE HOTLINK. For an example of using this option, see Using the DDE HOTLINK.

LRECL=record-length

specifies the record length (in bytes). Under Windows, the default is 256. The value of record-length can range from 1 to 1,073,741,823 (1 gigabyte).

NOTAB

instructs SAS to ignore tab characters between variables. For an example of using this option, see Using the NOTAB Option with DDE.

RECFM=record-format

controls the record format. The following are valid values under Windows:

F	indicates fixed format.
N	indicates binary format and causes the file to be treated as a byte stream. If LRECL is not specified, by default SAS reads 256 bytes at a time from the file.
P	indicates print format.
V\|D	indicates variable format. This is the default.

CAUTION:

Use caution when using DDE with data values that are blank or missing.

For sample code, see Reading Missing Data.