Export Dataset to Excel - Allows invalid characters.

Morning All,

Toad for Oracle 12.11.0.95.

I was exporting a data set from the editor results grid today, to Excel. I put a question mark (?) in the sheet name, and when Excel loaded the file, it barfed. I was offered the opportunity to “recover the corrupted file” and that worked, but I got a weird ame (recovered sheet 1) for the sheet in question.

It seems that the following are not allowed in a sheet name:

  • colon (:slight_smile:
  • backslash ()
  • slash (/)
  • question mark (?)
  • asterisk (*)
  • square brackets ([ or ])
    Also, a sheet name of “History” is reserved - but while Excel will load the file, and name the tab History, you won’t be able to rename a tab to history. It appears to be a hidden sheet used for tracking changes, so who knows what might happen if a Toad export with a tab name of “History” is created, and Excel has track changes enabled!

Maybe the sheet name text edit needs a key filter to filter out these invalid characters, and to prevent the use of “History” as a sheet name. (Case is ignored by the way.)

Thanks Norm. I’ll make a change for that. “History” - sheesh! You’d think someone at MS could have thought of using something less common for their hidden sheet name!

Morning John,

The history thing is amusing. Toad allows it, Excel opens the workbook with the sheet named as History etc. It won;t let you rename it though, or rename another sheet to become History. Only slightly weird.

I have yet to urn on change tracking and see what happens if I do open a sheet with a History tab… [;)]