External Interfaces

Example -- Importing Data From an Excel Application

Assume that you have an Excel spreadsheet stocks.xls. This spreadsheet contains the prices of three stocks in row 3 (columns 1 through 3) and the number of shares of these stocks in rows 6 through 8 (column 2). Initiate conversation with Excel with the command

• channel = ddeinit('excel','stocks.xls')
  

DDE functions require the rxcy reference style for Excel worksheets. In Excel terminology the prices are in r3c1:r3c3 and the shares in r6c2:r8c2.

Request the prices from Excel:

• prices = ddereq(channel,'r3c1:r3c3')
  
  prices =
             42.50        15.00        78.88
  

Next, request the number of shares of each stock:

• shares = ddereq(channel, 'r6c2:r8c2')
  
  shares = 
            100.00
            500.00
            300.00
  

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