DDELINK

Purpose:

Retrieves a series item from a DDE conversation whenever the item changes. The DDE channel number is managed internally.

Syntax:

DDELINK(

"app", "topic", "item")

DDELINK(

"app|topic!item", "server", autostart, startmode, datatype, overwrite, autoscale)

"app"

A string, the application name.

"topic"

Optional. A string, the topic name.

"item"

Optional. A string, the item name.

"server"

Optional. A string, the name of server executable.

autostart

Optional. An integer, start DDE server flag:

0:	Do not start server (default)
1:	Start DDE server

startmode

Optional. An integer, start DDE server flag:

0:	Do not start server (default)
1:	Start DDE server

datatype

Optional. An integer or name specifying the type of data to retrieve. Defaults to 0, ASCII. The following are valid data types:

Name	Code	Data Type	Range
ASCII	0	Comma/Space delimited data	N/A
SBYTE	1	Signed Byte	-128 to +127
UBYTE	2	Unsigned Byte	0 to 255
BYTE	2	(same as UBYTE)	0 to 255
SINT	3	Signed Integer	-32768 to +32767
UINT	4	Unsigned Integer	0 to 65536
LONG	5	4-byte Signed Integer	-2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647
FLOAT	6	4-byte Floating Point	-10^37 to +10^38
DOUBLE	7	8-byte Floating Point	-10^307 to +10^308

overwrite

Optional. An integer, the overwrite pervious data mode:

0:	Append new data to existing data (default)
1:	Overwrite existing data with new data.

autoscale

Optional. An integer, the plot autoscale mode:

0:	Do not automatically scale the Window to the range of the new data
1:	Autoscale the Window (default)

Returns:

A series representing the value of the item requested.

Example:

ddelink("Excel", "Sheet1", "R1C1:R100C1")

establishes a DDE conversation with Excel, returns the value of the cells in row 1, column 1 through row 100 column 1 as a series in the current window. Whenever a cell changes, the new series is appended to the existing series.

Remarks:

Use DDEUNLINK to terminate a DDELINK operation. The "app", optional "topic" and optional "item" strings can also be placed in one string of the following Syntax: "app|topic!item". For example:

ddelink("Excel|Sheet1!R1C1:R100C1")