Question about specifying the "format" argument when using importData to import EXCEL files?

["Max Zhao" <mzhao@homer.att.com>]

Fellow Splus users,

 

I am using the Splus 6.2 at Window XP platform. I am using "importData" to read the EXCEL files into Splus. I need to read one column as character, can the "format" argument help when the file type ="EXCEL"? 

 

My problem is: when one column starts with many numeric values, and then has some characters in it,

Splus tends to interpret it as a column of "numeric". Does anybody know how to fix this?

 

I am also wondering whether Splus 7.0 still has the same problem.

 

Thanks,

Max