After accessing an Excel workbook using the LIBNAME engine for Excel,
you can create a SAS dataset from a worksheet using PROC SQL CREATE
TABLE statements.  For example,

  libname myxls excel 'c:\my documents\myfile.xls' mixed=yes;

  proc sql;
     create table x as
        select *
           from myxls.'Sheet1$'n;
  quit;

However, when using a DATA Step to create a SAS data set from the
same Excel worksheet, you may receive the following error:

  data x;
     set myxls.'Sheet1$'n;
  run;


ERROR: Invalid sequence of commands for file myxls.'Sheet1$'n.DATA.

The current workaround for this problem is to use the PROC SQL CREATE
TABLE statement to create the SAS data set from the Excel worksheet.
The problem has been corrected in SAS 9.1.

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