Re: CSV - how to keep leading zeros and alignment problems

hi Glenn,

> An old article of Bob Cozzi in MC Press said to use the quote
> function, e.g. =("001") but I get =(001")" in my column. Perhaps
> the quote function will only work for people using CPYTOIMPF.

In order to keep leading zeroes, you'll have to somehow trick Excel into thinking that your field is a character field. Personally, I think that's a lot of trickery, because what you're really doing is trying to use a CSV for a purpose it wasn't designed for. CSV is NOT designed to be a spreadsheet or an Excel document. CSV is not supposed to imply any sort of formatting of data.

Consider using XML, HTML, or Excel's native XLS format (via POI) for your files. They'll give you much more control.

The notion that it's okay to use =("001") from CPYTOIMPF, but not via the IFS APIs seems strange to me. Obviously Excel has no way of knowing what you did to create the file! If CPYTOIMPF works, then view your file and view CPYTOIMPF's output and see what's different. Then change your call to the write() API to write it exactly the same as CPYTOIMPF writes it. If the bytes are the same, Excel won't know the difference.