From: Nuralanur@...
Date: 2005-09-24T01:40:54+09:00
Subject: A windows ole question - howto start an external application

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Hello,
 
I would like to make Ruby run an external program - Maple - under Windows  XP,
write something to it and then close it.
It would be nice to capture the output of that program, but that's  not
obligatory, since I could make that program write a file for itself.
 
Following Hal Fulton's examples in "The Ruby Way", I tried two things  without
success so far:
 
1.) Adapt 
require "win32ole" 
word = WIN32OLE.new "Word.Application"

word.visible = true

# ...

word.quit

2.)  Adapt
require "open3"
filenames = %w[ file1 file2 this that another one_more ]

inp, out, err = Open3.popen3("xargs", "ls", "-l")

filenames.each {  |f| inp.puts f }    # Write to the process's stdin
inp.close                           # Close is necessary!

output = out.readlines              # Read from its stdout
errout = err.readlines              # Also read from its stderr
.
The problem seems to be that I do not really know how to tell
Ruby to start the right application - from the properties
menu I get the information that it's file
"C:\Programme\Maple 9.5\bin.win\maplew9.5.exe" that starts Maple,
but this is simply not recognized correctly.
Can anybody with Windows automation experience give me a hint how
to find out what to substitute for "Word.Application" in
word = WIN32OLE.new "Word.Application" in the first variant
 
or what to substitute for "xargs" in
 
inp, out, err = Open3.popen3("xargs", "ls", "-l")


?
Thank you,
 
Axel


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