Re: IBM i database to Excel spreadsheet

Have you looked at what the latest ACS (Client Solutions) emulator
can do directly from IBM I? Headings are included and really fast
Excel creation with very little effort. And you can save the request
that's built
for future use.






From: Elden Fenison <Elden.Fenison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 11/30/2016 11:14 AM
Subject: IBM i database to Excel spreadsheet
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>



I'd like to figure out a better way to get data from an IBM i database
file into an Excel spreadsheet.

We are currently using an open source tool apparently written by Hideyuki
Yahagi. It will take an IBM i database and create a CSV file. We land that
on a QNTC file system (on a Windows server) where the user goes and grabs
it. The user then imports the CSV file into an XLS file via Excel.

The problem we face is that the CSV format doesn't retain any real
information with regards to column formatting. So when we try to import
the CSV to an XLS, Excel tries to guess about the column formatting to
where fields that appear that they could be valid dates (but are not) are
brought in as a date data type. The only way we've found around this is to
tell the import process what the format should be for each column, every
time we need to import from CSV to Excel. We think that exporting directly
from the IBM i database to an XLS format might be allow us to retain the
column formatting so that we don't have to go through all those hoops.

So I am seeking a way to go directly from the IBM i database to an Excel
spreadsheet. If there are no free solutions, we would definitely consider
a paid solution.

Ideas?

Elden Fenison
Programmer/Analyst
Murphy Company