From: RichardOnRails <RichardDummyMailbox58407@...>
Date: 2008-10-29T13:14:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Open a MS Excel file from within Ruby

On Oct 27, 1:57 pm, Chris Hulan <chris.hu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 25, 1:20 pm, RichardOnRails
>
>
>
> <RichardDummyMailbox58...@uscomputergurus.com> wrote:
> > Hi.
>
> > I'm writing a small Ruby pgm to demonstrate that FasterCVS is a good
> > way to handle CSV data.
>
> > I put up a small CSV file and demonstrated the FasterCSV aspect.  I'd
> > like to precede that step by automatically bringing up the CSV file in
> > Excel. (I know I could bring it up manually, but I'd like a self-
> > contained demo for a computer-illiterate person.)
>
> > I've got "fn" set to a string which is the fully qualified name of the
> > CSV file.  I concocted the (failing) command:
>
> > SystemCommand.start("Excel", fn)
>
> > based on my interpretation of the RDoc for Shell::SystemCommand.  I
> > took a wild stabs to no avail at adding "require 'system'" and
> > "require 'shel'"
>
> > I'm running:
> > ruby 1.8.6 (2007-09-24 patchlevel 111) [i386-mswin32]
> > WinXP-Pro/SP3
>
> > TIA,
> > Richard
>
> You probably should look at system (its in kernel so no require
> needed)
> something like:
> system "start excel c:\\pathto\\my\\file.csv"
>
> cheers

Hi Axel & Chris,

Thanks for your responses.  I had some success,  but was unable to get
at the content of my Excel file.

Axel,  I was able the get an Excel instance and find it's methods.
What I didn't find but think I need it to access the content of a
worksheet.

Chris,  I was unable to use "system" to open an Excel file.

Maybe I little dense (or two dense to foll around with Win32OLE.)
Below is the code I fooled around with.  If you have any other ideas,
I'd be grateful to receive them.

Best wishes,
Richard

# LoadDataTest.rb
# K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\PayrollLoader
require 'win32ole'
pgm = DATA.read.chomp
fn = DATA.read.chomp
puts pgm, fn, ""

excel = WIN32OLE.new('Excel.Application')
# puts excel.methods.sort --worked fine
# puts excel.ole_get_methods--worked fine also, I think
# Try to find an "open" method:
excel.ole_methods.each { |meth| puts meth if meth.to_s =~ /Op/i }
#system( "pgm", fn ) # Couldn't open the document

puts "", "EOJ"
__END__
F:\Docume~1\AllUse~1\StartM~1\Programs\_Microsoft
\Micros~3\Micros~2.lnk
K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\PayrollLoader\TestSheet.csv




AceI fooled around with