SqlServer to Excel export with OPENROWSET

Question

All,

I am successfully exporting to excel with the following statement:

insert into OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0', 
'Excel 8.0;Database=C:\template.xls;', 
'SELECT * FROM [SheetName$]') 
select * from myTable

Is there any standard way to use this template specifying a new name for the excel sheet so that the template never gets written to or do I have to come up with some work-around?

What's the best way to do this in people experience?

Answer 1

YOu'd have to use dynamic SQL. OPENROWSET etc only allow literals as paramters.

DECLARE @myfile varchar(800)

SET @myfile = 'C:\template.xls'

EXEC ('
insert into OPENROWSET(''Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0'', 
''Excel 8.0;Database=' + @myfile + ';'', 
''SELECT * FROM [SheetName$]'') 
select * from myTable
')

Remember: the path is relative to where SQL Server is running

Answer 2

Couldn't you make a copy of your template first, then pass the copy's filename into OPENROWSET?