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 .