saving Excel file in ABAQUS Python script?

[thinkvantagedu]

Hello,

I recorded a macro in ABAQUS, the last step is importing xy data from ABAQUS to Excel. If I run this python script in MATLAB, I can get an unsaved Excel file named 'Book1'.

The last few lines look like this:

import abq_ExcelUtilities.excelUtilities
abq_ExcelUtilities.excelUtilities.XYtoExcel(xyDataNames='From Current XY Plot',
trueName='From Current XY Plot')

My question is, is there any ABAQUS Python command which allows me to write in my macro Python file and save this Excel file? If I do not save it, I cannot do anything to these data apart from seeing it.

Thank you!

 

[cooken]

That would require sending commands to excel directly. I'm not sure what the built in utility does in order to open an excel workbook, but there are a few python modules that can handle this. The one I use is win32com, you should be able to find a bunch of information on it through google, but here's a summary of commands that should work.

xl = win32com.client.Dispatch("Excel.Application") #Fetch the application and assign it to a variable. You can now interact with excel using python/VBA.
xl.DisplayAlerts=False #Get rid of popup alerts that will prevent some scripts from running.
xl.Visible = 1 #Shows the excel app window, useful if you want to mess around issuing commands from the Abaqus GUI and observing what happens in the workbook.
xlBook = xl.Workbooks.Add() #Similar to what Abaqus does, creates a 'Book1'.
xlSheet = xlBook.Sheets(1) #Access a worksheet
xlSheet.Cells(1,1).Value = #Modify cell contents.
xlBook.SaveAs(Filename='Name', FileFormat='Format') #Here is the save command you were looking for.
xl.Application.Quit()

You can also use that to open an existing workbook, modify and save it.
xlBook = xl.Workbooks.Open('path\filename.xls')
xlBook.Save()

 

[testing]

Rather than write to an excel workbook, you can write the data to a plain text file using a comma delimiter. You can then read your data into excel easily. You can use the savetxt function from numpy for this (

http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.savetxt.html#numpy.savetxt)

 

[thinkvantagedu]

Hi cooken,

Shall I use this code in ABAQUS or MATLAB? I tried in ABAQUS but it seems that it cannot recognise this syntax (which means I have to follow some Python syntax rules in order to make it work in ABAQUS)

 

[cooken]

Include these and try again.

import win32com.client
from win32com.client import constants

 

[thinkvantagedu]

hi cooken,

I tried and it gave me this error in MATLAB:

com_error: (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (0, u'Microsoft Excel', u'SaveAs method of Workbook class failed', u'xlmain11.chm', 0, -2146827284), None)

Abaqus Error: cae exited with an error.

ans =

1

But an empty new book did created, so my question is instead of creating a new book, how to save the existing unsaved book?

Thank you!

 

[cooken]

Seems that SaveAs() does not work with a "\" for the file path. Try "\\" instead ('C:\\Temp\\filename.xls' for example). How annoying.