weird characters

[ybomi]

here you go,

[RavensFan]

That is not a .csv file.  It is still an .xls file that you just happened to give the .csv extension to.

Did you remember to change the type of file you were saving to when you used the Save As dialog box in Excel?

[ybomi]

ok got it. i got what i wanted

but why is there such a problem in the first place ie. the weird characters if the file is not in csv format??

[billko]

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@ybomi wrote:

ok got it. i got what i wanted

but why is there such a problem in the first place ie. the weird characters if the file is not in csv format??

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Ugh, really?  If you don't understand this basic concept, I'm not sure you'd understand the explanation.

[johnsold]

Here is what the file contents look like when read as a binary file and displayed in hexadecimal.

A real csv file would have most of the hex characters starting with 3.

Lynn

[crossrulz · Accepted solution]

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@ybomi wrote:

ok got it. i got what i wanted

but why is there such a problem in the first place ie. the weird characters if the file is not in csv format??

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The Read From Spreadsheet File reads text files that have a delimiter of some sort.  Common delimiters are tab and comma.  An XLS file is a proprietary format the Microsoft created.  Only parsers that specifically know the xls (or xlsx) format.  The Read From Spreadsheet File does NOT know this proprietary format.  That is why it doesn't work.

[ybomi]

thanks crossrulz, now i understand. 

My bad that i did not understand fully 

[JÞB]

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@ybomi wrote:

thanks crossrulz, now i understand. 

My bad that i did not understand fully 

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In your own defence an Excel file is a spreadsheet.  just one in a propriatary format that contains bytes and bytes of specific constructs.   There is even a romur that an easter egg exists in Excel with an entire plane flight simulator.  A "Generic" Spreadsheet is all that read from spreadsheet file supports.

[ybomi]

thanks so much guys =D

[LV_Pro]

Not sure about the current versions of Excel, but it is true that the earlier versions had a basic flight simulator. And when you consider that memory in a PC was limited to 640Kbytes!