Linking to Excel for data retrieval

I currently have a LISP routine that retrieves information to draw a part
from a text file(1 item per row). The text file is currenty produced by a C
or C++ program we had written by an outside vendor. In order to make changes
to the geometry easier to make, I am producing an Excel spreadsheet to do
all of the calculations. Is there a way to link the drawing to Excel and
read the 'variables' with the lisp. I have tried linking through dbconnect,
but am at a loss when I have to read the values once linked. Any help or
direction would be great.

 

This was in my reply to - ChrisW - "Visual Lisp & Excel" 4/8/4 at 2:20pm

This is a program used to write to the current active cell in an excel
spread sheet.
Part of the code reads the current cell to make sure it is blank (stored to
XLtxt).
You can modify this code to read the cell(s) in the current Active Sheet of
an Excel Spread Sheet.

(defun ACAD2XL (XLTEXT /)
(vl-load-com) ;load extended AutoLISP functions (must be run prior to VL
functions)
;get excel application
(setq XLapp (vlax-get-or-create-object "Excel.Application")
XLrun (vlax-get-property XLapp 'Visible)
)
;check if excel running
(if (= XLrun :vlax-false)
;excel is not running
(progn
(vlax-release-object XLapp)
(setq XLapp nil XLrun nil)
(gc)
(alert "\nERROR - Please Start Excel and select Cell (to place data)
prior to running this command.")
)
;excel is running
(progn
(setq XLwbk (vlax-get-property XLapp 'WorkBooks)
XLash (vlax-get-property XLapp 'ActiveSheet)
XLcel (vlax-get-property XLapp 'ActiveCell)
)
;check if workbook is active
(if (and XLash XLcel)
;excel workbook is active
(progn
(setq XLcol (vlax-get-property XLcel 'Column)
XLrow (vlax-get-property XLcel 'Row)
XLcva (vlax-get-property XLcel 'Text)
XLtxt (vlax-variant-value XLcva)
)
;convert column and row number into Cell text (Example - Column 1,
Row 1 = A1
(if (= (/ XLcol 26) 0)
(setq TC (strcat (chr (+ (rem XLcol 26) 64)) (itoa XLrow)))
(setq TC (strcat (chr (+ (/ XLcol 26) 64)) (chr (+ (rem XLcol
26) 64)) (itoa XLrow)))
)
(setq CELL (strcat TC ":" TC))
;check if cell all ready has data
(if (= XLtxt "")
(setq YN "Y")
(setq YN (strcase (getstring (strcat "\nNOTICE - Excel Cell
contains [" XLtxt "] - Change [n]=No or [Y]=Yes ? "))))
)
(if (member YN (list "" "Y"))
(progn
(setq Cells (vlax-get-property XLash 'Range CELL))
(setq VTXT (vlax-make-variant XLTEXT vlax-vbString))
(vlax-put-property Cells 'Value2 VTXT)
)
)
;release objects
(vlax-release-object Cells)
(vlax-release-object XLcel)
(vlax-release-object XLash)
(vlax-release-object XLwbk)
(vlax-release-object XLapp)
(setq XLapp nil XLrun nil XLwbk nil XLash nil XLcel nil Cells nil)
(gc)
)
;excel is running, but no active workbooks
(progn
(alert "\nERROR - Excel is running, but there are NO workbooks
open.")
(vlax-release-object XLwbk)
(vlax-release-object XLapp)
(setq XLapp nil XLrun nil XLwbk nil)
)
)
)
)
(princ)
)