Hello,

I have a question about Win32OLE.
I think that I'll change the behavior of WIN32OLE#[] and WIN32OLE#[]= 
in Ruby 1.9 or later. 

I have not commited the change yet.
Before commiting it, I want suggestions or opinions from Win32OLE users.

For example, 
  excel = WIN32OLE.excel("Excel.Application")
  excel["Visible"] = true
is NG.
Instead, You must write
  excel = WIN32OLE.excel("Excel.Application")
  excel.Visible = true

For more,
   installer = WIN32OLE.new("WindowsInstaller.Installer")
   record = installer.CreateRecord(2)
   record ["StringData", 1] = 'dddd'

is NG. Instead,
   installer = WIN32OLE.new("WindowsInstaller.Installer")
   record = installer.CreateRecord(2)
   record.setproperty("StringData", 1, 'dddd')

By using new featuer, You can write

  worksheet.cells[1,2] = 10

in Excel. 

For more, you can write

  WIN32OLE.new("WScript.Shell")
  env = sh.Environment("User")
  p env["FOO"]
  env["FOO"] = "BARBAZ"

For more, you can write

  ado = WIN32OLE.new("ADODB.Connection")
  ado.Open("...")
  rs = ado.Execute("SELECT * from TABLE01")
  while !rs.EOF
      puts rs.Fields.Item("id").value
      puts rs.Fields("id").value
      puts rs["id"].value # This is new feature!
      rs.MoveNext
  end

and so on. Any comment, any question, welcome.

  Regards,
  Masaki Suketa

Hi!

Masaki Suketa wrote:
> I have a question about Win32OLE.
> I think that I'll change the behavior of WIN32OLE#[] and WIN32OLE#[]=
> in Ruby 1.9 or later.
>
> I have not commited the change yet.
> Before commiting it, I want suggestions or opinions from Win32OLE users.

No longer allowed:
>  excel["Visible"] = true
>   record ["StringData", 1] = 'dddd'

New:
>  worksheet.cells[1,2] = 10
>  env["FOO"] = "BARBAZ"
>      puts rs["id"].value # This is new feature!

Excellent! This makes a lot more sense than the existing function of [] and 
[]=.

When I first used WIN32OLE, I was surprised that you couldn't use [] to 
access index operations.

I haven't used obj[prop, n] before, that I can recall. I think neither that 
nor setproperty() are the ideal Ruby syntax for this operation, but [] seems 
better. How about this:

>   record ["StringData", 1] = 'dddd'
>   record.setproperty("StringData", 1, 'dddd')

record[:StringData][1] = 'dddd'

Possible implementation:
class WIN32OLE
    class Property
        attr_reader :object, :name
        def initialize(obj, name)
            unless obj.kind_of?(WIN32OLE)
                raise TypeError.new("cannot convert #{obj.inspect} to 
WIN32OLE")
            end
            self.object = obj
            self.name = name.to_s
        end
        def [](*args)
            object.getproperty(name, *args)
        end
        def []=(*args)
            object.setproperty(name, *args)
        end
    end
    def [](*args)
        if args.size == 1 && args[0].kind_of?(Symbol)
            return Property.new(self, *args)
        end
        # everything else
    end
end

(I realize there's 'win32ole/property' already, but I don't know exactly 
what its purpose is.)

Thanks a lot for WIN32OLE, Masaki Suketa!

Cheers,
Dave 

Masaki Suketa wrote:
> and so on. Any comment, any question, welcome.
> 
>   Regards,
>   Masaki Suketa

I have been using WIN32OLE like this:

def test_get_serial
    bios = WIN32OLE.connect("winmgmts:\\\\.")
    bios.InstancesOf("win32_bios").each do |item|
      return item.serialnumber
    end
end

Thank you.
Brad

Hello,

In message "Re: WIN32OLE#[] and WIN32OLE#[]= method in Ruby 1.9 (or later)"
    on 06/03/25, "Dave Burt" <dave@burt.id.au> writes:

> I haven't used obj[prop, n] before, that I can recall. I think neither that 
> nor setproperty() are the ideal Ruby syntax for this operation, but [] seems 
> better. How about this:
> 
> >   record ["StringData", 1] = 'dddd'
> >   record.setproperty("StringData", 1, 'dddd')
> 
> record[:StringData][1] = 'dddd'

Thank you. It is very interesting.
I think about it.

> (I realize there's 'win32ole/property' already, but I don't know exactly 
> what its purpose is.)

It is helper class of early binding of WIN32OLE.
For example,
  ext/win32ole/sample/olegen.rb uses it.
And, 
  ruby olegen.rb 'Microsoft ActiveX Data Object N.N Library'
creates some property which uses OLEProperty.

Yes, it is not so convenient.

  Regards,
  Masaki Suketa

Hi again,

Masaki Suketa wrote:
> In message "Re: WIN32OLE#[] and WIN32OLE#[]= method in Ruby 1.9 (or 
> later)"
>    on 06/03/25, "Dave Burt" <dave@burt.id.au> writes:
>
>> >   record.setproperty("StringData", 1, 'dddd')
>>
>> record[:StringData][1] = 'dddd'
>
> Thank you. It is very interesting.
> I think about it.

It's not ideal, but WIN32OLE doesn't use Symbols - VBScript and JScript 
don't have them.
We're trying to match this VBScript, right?

record.StringData(1) = "dddd"

As far as I understand, we can't make record.StringData(1) = "dddd" or 
record.StringData[1] = "dddd" work while keeping the same dynamic call 
functionality we already have (StringData should be called as a method in 
both cases) but what about another option:

record.StringData{1} = "dddd"

The rule would be similar to the above, but instead of looking for a symbol, 
you're looking for block_given? and using "yield" as the index/parameter to 
the property.
Although, in a sense, this matches semantic-for-semantic less than the 
[:StringData] version, and that's what I like best about the change you're 
suggesting - use Ruby's index operators for the same purpose in OLE.

Thanks again for your efforts on this project,
Dave