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 32767. 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 values are valid 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 32767 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 .