From: Ryan Hinton <iobass@...>
Date: 2006-02-02T06:48:34+09:00
Subject: WIN32OLE extension using in/out SAFEARRAYs (Matlab interface)

I am having trouble calling a COM object (Matlab) using the excellent
WIN32OLE Ruby extension.  Several other calls have worked fine, but
this call involves some in/out SAFEARRAYs.  Here is the method
signature.

GetFullMatrix([in] BSTR varname, [in] BSTR workspace,
              [in, out] SAFEARRAY(double) *pr,
              [in, out] SAFEARRAY(double) *pi)

The server uses the sizes of the arrays pr and pi to fill them with the
requested data--hence their dual in/out nature.  Does anyone know how
to properly make a call like this?  Is it possible?  My most successful
attempts have given me the following error.

WIN32OLERuntimeError: GetFullMatrix
    OLE error code:0 in <Unknown>
      <No Description>
    HRESULT error code:0x80020005
      Type mismatch.
        from (irb):30:in `method_missing'
        from (irb):30
        from :0

In case you're running on Windows with Matlab installed, here is the
code I am using.

require 'win32ole'
matlab = WIN32OLE.new('Matlab.Application')
matlab.Execute('bob = 1:5;')
t1 = Array.new(5, 0.0)
t2 = t1.dup
t3 = matlab.GetFullMatrix('bob', 'base', t1, t2)