Microsoft KB Archive/184790

= XL98: Input # Statement Does Not Retain Trailing Spaces =

Article ID: 184790

Article Last Modified on 6/12/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Excel 98 for Macintosh

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This article was previously published under Q184790





SYMPTOMS
When you use the Input # statement in a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro to read data in a file, trailing spaces in unquoted data are ignored. For example, when you assign a field to the variable in the Input # statement, the field does not contain trailing spaces even if trailing spaces exist in the source file. This behavior differs from behavior in earlier versions of Microsoft Excel.



CAUSE
The behavior of the Input # statement in Microsoft Excel 98 has been changed to more closely match the behavior of the Input # statement that is used in Microsoft Visual Basic version 4.0 and later.



WORKAROUND
Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. To work around this behavior, place quotation marks around any input strings that have trailing spaces. For example, if a source file contains the following data   Fred     ,Albert Barney  ,Jefferson change the source file to the following:   "Fred     ",Albert "Barney  ",Jefferson When you run the following macro on the file that contains fields that are enclosed in quotation marks, the trailing spaces are retained: Sub ReadFile

Open "test" For Input As #1        ' Open file for input. Do While Not EOF(1)                ' Loop until end of file. Input #1, str1, str2           ' Read data into variables. Debug.Print "[" & str1 & "]"   ' Print variables in Debug ' window. Debug.Print "[" & str2 & "]" Loop Close #1                           ' Close the file.

End Sub The results in the Debug window are the following:   [Fred     ] [Albert] [Barney  ] [Jefferson]



STATUS
This behavior is by design in Microsoft Excel 98.

