importtbl/importmat: bug when importing a "one-cell range" from excel

[mamo]

Dear Eviews team,

I use Eviews 9.5, 27 December 16 build

I found a bug when importing a range covering only one cell in an excel file into a matrix or a table.
For instance, the command

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importtbl(name=testtable, mode=overwrite) "MyExcelFile.xlsx" range="Sheet1!$C$9:$C$9"

imports the whole range right of and below the cell Sheet1!C9 into the table testable, whereas

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importmat(name=testmat, mode=overwrite) "MyExcelFile.xlsx" range="Sheet1!$C$9:$C$9"

imports all the rows below the cell Sheet1!C9 into the matrix testmat.

Same results obtain with the range specification range="Sheet1!$C$99"

Best, mamo

[EViews Steve]

Thanks for the report. I'll look into it...

[EViews Steve]

This is actually a bug with the IMPORT (which IMPORTTBL uses internally). If there are other non-blank cells around the cell you're trying to import, IMPORT treats your range as a starting point instead of a start & end point.

This might actually be a feature of IMPORT instead of a bug -- I'll have to investigate further to figure out which.

We'll try to get a fix for this for at least IMPORTTBL and IMPORTMAT soon...

Steve

[mamo]

I see your point, yes, this can also be considered as a feature of the procedures importtabl or importmat.
Here a suggestion for future implementations:

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importmat(name=testmat, mode=overwrite) "MyExcelFile.xlsx" range="Sheet1!$C$9:$C$9"

would yield a 1x1 matrix containing only the contents of the cell $C$9, whereas

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importmat(name=testmat, mode=overwrite) "MyExcelFile.xlsx" range="Sheet1!$C$9"

would yield an nxn matrix made up of the contents of the largest coherent range below and to the right of the cell $C$9.

Alternatively, you may also think of introducing an option, retrieve=all/single, so that

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importmat(name=testmat, mode=overwrite, retrieve=single) "MyExcelFile.xlsx" range="Sheet1!$C$9"

retrieves only the contents of cell $C$9.
Best, mamo

[EViews Steve]

Ok, we changed IMPORT/WFOPEN to honor the Excel end cell specification when the end cell is the same as the first cell. This fix resolves the issue with IMPORTTBL and IMPORTMAT when trying to read in a single Excel cell.

This will be released in the next patch for EViews 10.

[EViews Steve]

FYI, the latest patch has this fix in it so you should be able to test it now. Let me know if it works for you or not.