From: Damphyr <damphyr@...>
Date: 2005-09-27T00:54:49+09:00
Subject: Re: A windows ole question - howto start an external application

Nuralanur@aol.com wrote:
> Dear "damphyr",
>  
> thank you very much - that's just what I needed (for now).
> One interesting question remains however for the Unix-lover and only  
> occasional
> Windows developer :
> I guess from your response that if a Windows application does have an  API,
> it will be easily accessible from Ruby.
> Is there some tutorial how to do this (<10000 pages) ?
Well, it'S actually very simple - the complex part starts from when you 
have a reference to an OLE Object and no reference of the API :).

A typical OLE connection would go

app=WIN32OLE.new(APP_NAME)
obj=app.get_some_object_through_api_call
obj.call_a_method

You need to wrap this with some rescue clauses to catch the exceptions 
and you're OK.
As you see, there's nothing to do a tutorial about.
You do need a good reference of the API you want to use, but you'll find 
out that the win32ole Ruby stuff follow the general Ruby rule:
they do what you expect.
You don't need more than the standard library documentation for the ruby 
side:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/win32ole/rdoc/classes/WIN32OLE.html
I must say I prefer coding windows stuff using the ruby OLE interface 
(even if it's a hundred times slower) than dive again in the insane 
world of .tlbs and IUnknown interfaces.
Cheers,
V.-

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