bcp to export sql table to excel, how avoid suppress of leading ze

[pensio]

I'm using bcp command to export a sql server table to an excel sheet. I've
created a bcp format file to use with the command. It looks like this :

9.0
5
1 SQLCHAR 0 20 "\t" 1 ArticleNumber
SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
2 SQLCHAR 0 100 "\t" 2 Description
SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
3 SQLCHAR 0 6 "\t" 3 InvoiceNumber
SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
4 SQLCHAR 0 19 "\t" 4 SalesPrice
SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
5 SQLCHAR 0 19 "\r" 5 NumberDelivered
SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

to execute the command in T-sql :
declare @sql varchar(500)
select @sql = 'bcp dataBaseX.dbo.FileToExport out c:\ExcelSheet.xls -f
c:\bcp.fmt -T'
exec master..xp_cmdshell @sql

The export executes without errors. Problem is that ArticleNumber field in
the sql table is a varchar field that most of the time contains only numbers
and often starts with a zero.
If I open the excel sheet, then the leading zeros are suppressed.
The fields in the first record of the sql table contain the columnheaders
('ArticleNumber', 'Description' etc).
I hoped to mislead excel this way to see aspecially the ArticleNumber field
as a text field, but to no avail.

It is important that I see the leading zeros in the excel sheet when opening
the document, without first having to change the properties of the column.
How do I solve this ?

versions : SQL Server 2005, Office 2000

Thanks for any advice.

[matteus]

Hi pensio, just some thoughts...
I know 2 ways to view leading zeros in excel: first creating
personalized cell formatting like "00...0" with as many 0 as are the
numbers in the fields. typically you can use this with omogeneous
data. Second you can attach an ' before the number. But importing it
with such a leading ', the number will be shown as '12345 until you
edit the cell and validate the value.

Have you tried to use an already formatted and empty Excel file?

But because you want the numbers to be shown with leading zeros when
opening and without any forced formatting and of course, because of
we're writing on a sqlserver.dts NG i would suggest to either attach
at the beginning of the field some dummy char such as a space,
underscore, apostroph or build a simple pkg to create the file as you
like ;)

Ciao,
M.

[Mark Han[MSFT]]

Hi Pensio,

This is Mark, a SQL Server Engineer. I'm glas to assist you with the issue.

Based on the requirement, please try the following action
1 Please set the column ArticleNumber as TEXT data type in SQL Server.

2 Creating a non-XML format file for Unicode native data.
There is an article to share with
you:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191516.aspx

bcp dataBaseX.dbo.FileToExport nul -T -N -f c:\bcp.fmt

3 run the command

declare @sql varchar(500)
select @sql = 'bcp dataBaseX.dbo.FileToExport out c:\ExcelSheet.xls -f
c:\bcp.fmt -T'
exec master..xp_cmdshell @sql

Then the leading zeros will be seen in the excel sheet.

Besides, since the bcp is used to export data out of tables into data
files and the column name is not considered as data, the column name() will
not be copied from SQL Server into data file.

Best regards,
Mark Han
Microsoft Online Community Support
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[pensio]

Thanks all for your replies, I tried your suggestions, but the problem
persists.
Because I had to find a solution real fast, I just added an underscore at
the end of the ArticleNumber field contents, so Excel automatically detects
the column as a Text column.
Should you have more ideas, I'm still interested !

[Mark Han[MSFT]]

Hi Pensio,

Thank you for the update. I'm glad the issue is resolved by yourslef. I'm
so proud of you.

Since the column in the EXcel is able to be changed from number type to
text type by ' , Copying data from a query to the excel sheet could be a
solution also.

For example:
bcp "select ''' +'ArticleNumber ' from table_name" queryout

c:\ExcelSheet.xls -f c:\bcp.fmt -T

There is an article to share with you:
bcp Utility:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162802.aspx

Hope the above is helpful. Thanks

Best regards,
Mark Han
Microsoft Online Community Support

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