Com Functions...

The_Chancer

Trying to get a COM function to open word, type a few words n save it again... simple you would have thought... look at this script.

<?php
$word = new COM("word.application") or
 die("Impossible to instantiate WordApp");
print "Word is running, version {$word->Version}\n</br>";


$word->Visible=1;

$word->Documents->Add();
$word->Selection->TypeText("This is a test..."); $word->Documents[1]->SaveAs("test_com_php.doc"); $word->Quit(); 
?>

Should work with no problems... BUT I get this :-

Warning: Type library value emptyenum is already defined and has a different value in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\com.php on line 2
Word is running, version 9.0 

Warning: Invoke() failed: Exception occurred. Source: Microsoft Word Description: Could not open macro storage. in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\com.php on line 9

Warning: Invoke() failed: Exception occurred. Source: Microsoft Word Description: The requested member of the collection does not exist. in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\com.php on line 10

And it also leaves the WinWord process started and unfinished on the server, unable to quit this.

Any help/thoughts would be appreciated.

jeremuck

nothing with Microsoft is simple.
does it print your die statements?

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/alain20001003.php3 has some useful information.

Note that there's a difference in starting the application and starting the next object.

In my excel app, I need to use TWO new COM statements.

I also found it necessary to be very careful with quitting. Quitting/closing had to be done in a very specific order.
Moreover, if it died somewhere, it was left open.
The solution is to wrap up the quitting sequence into a function.
Pass a string to the function to print it as an error.
In your die statments, instead of juts printing the message, call the quitting function with an error message.
This way you won' constantly leave it open if it dies.

The_Chancer

It does start Word, as teh line

Loaded Word 9

Comes up after the "Type library value emptyenum is already defined and has a different value" error

But it seems to hang on the opening of a new document...

Don't get you about the use of a function to hold the quit statement though.. any help ?

harlowhair

Make the document that has just been added active? e.g.

$worddoc = $word->Documents->Add();
$worddoc->activate

I could be totally wrong because I haven't used Com much, so please don't hate me. Just a suggestion.

The_Chancer

Nice try, but unfortunately not... didn't really do anything... bugger...

jeremuck

nod I wasn't very clear...

right now you have your code flow going like this:

start app
do some stuff, if something breaks, print message
quit app.

If it dies, it will never quit the app.

change your die statements from:
die(print "it didn't work :-(");
to
die(myquit(&$word, "it didn't work :-(");
where myquit() is something like:


myquit(&$appInstance, $message = "Everything appears to be working")
{
$appInstance->Quit();
echo $message;
}

every time you use a die command, execute the function instead of merely printing a message.

Then your flow will be like this:

open app
do stuff... if something breaks, quit AND give error message
quit

The_Chancer

A work of genius... but it still broke (expected it to really)

OK - so now it stops and quits the instance, many thanks for that, now I don't keep having to restart the server.....

You said somethign abotu having to start two new COM instances ? any ideas why ? and did you do anything to your Office setup to enable you to use COM functions (I think they are as part of the core but I am not sure...)

jeremuck

no, I dont' think the OFFICE setup has anything to do with it.

yeah... once I had something like 10 instances of excel running...
I said enough is enough!

well in my excel COM-PHP code,
i had to start one instance for the application
and another new COM instance for the workbook or somethign...

I'm at work and my code is at home, otherwise I could be more specific.

Anyway, I wonder if there isn't a similar situation with word.. where you need one COM for the app, and another COM for the workspace.

Try looking at the object model, and instantiating a new COM object on the class right below the application level, using the app object you just used. scratches head my clarity is mud today... sorry.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odeomg/html/deovrmicrosoftword2000.asp
I'm looking at the Word 2000 object model, it looks like document might be a good choice.
Maybe

$doc = $word->Documents->Add(); ???

I don't have any clue, I guess.
The whole thing makes me nervous...
It's very temperamental. I had the whole thing working using com_get and com_exec and com_set...
Then one day it just stopped working and I changed everything to explicit $word->Run type of syntax and it worked again.

Very very strange.

The_Chancer

OK - code revised, but something else has now come to light...
After the following was used...

<?php
function myquit(&$appInstance, $message = "Everything appears to be working")
{
$appInstance->Quit();
echo $message;
}

$word = new COM("Word.Application") or die(myquit(&$word, "new com failed"));

print "Word is running, version {$word->Version}\n</br>";

$word->Quit() or die(myquit(&$word, "Quit didnt work"));
?>

I got the error message that
"Warning: Type library value emptyenum is already defined and has a different value in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\com.php on line 8"

And Quit Didn't work...

Something very strange afoot...

Any ideas ?

The_Chancer

Any other ideas about this ? Anyone ?

I really need to get this bl**dy thing working, either that or can anyone else think of a workaround for this scenario...

Data in M$SQL database.
Use query to get data from database.
Format text from database nicely so it looks good.
Save document and attach it to database (via use of path to file, not blob).

jeremuck

hhmmm did it print the version thing and then said it didn't quit correctly?

was it still open in your task manager?

EDIT: also, when you run the script, can you see if Word ever actually opens?

The_Chancer

Don't go there....

Had to restart loads today, I got to about 20 unfinished WINWORD processes...

YET

With the little "or die" clause from yourself, it does kill them off... (I was trying things out so I got loads left on there...)

Been looking at the links from HERE at the Microsoft site, as well as the VB Docs (ALt+F11) for the object broswer to try and get round it...

Also tried com_get as well, still the same answers though....

edited: Nope - I see nothing on my screen, nor on the server. Never done this before so I don't know what I should be expecting...

jeremuck

then as far as you know, the app never actually starts up?

after you do
$word = new COM("Word.Application");

do a

$workspace = new COM("Word.Documents");

$document = $workspace->Add();

...
$document ->saveas()

add this to quitting function
$workspace->close()
unset($workspace);

$word->Quit();
unset($word);

EDIT: I changed it a bit.

jeremuck

this looked useful..
edit it and try it

$ri_text = $testo;

$ri_path = "C:\apache\htdocs\";
$ri_base = "doc\RI base.doc";
$ri_file = "doc\RI000002";

echo "$ri_path<hr>$ri_base<hr>$ri_file.doc<hr>$ri_text<hr>";

$word = new COM("word.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Word");

$testversion = com_get($word->application,version);

$word->Visible = 1;
$word->Documents->Open("$ri_path$ri_base");
$word->Selection->TypeText("$ri_text");
$word->ActiveDocument->SaveAs("$ri_path$ri_file.doc");

//$word->Quit();

The_Chancer

Cheers for those, will have to haev alook at it when I am at work.. I have it working here from our posts, but it is a different setup there... will have to try it and let you know how it works..

The_Chancer

Ok - so we were wrong - SO wrong....

Now then... on the server, you need to run DCOMCFG.EXE and set the server to allow COM functions from elsewhere..

THEN you need to set it up for the default user to be the IUSR_machine_name.

Now we are getting somewhere... still not working properly, but it is an improvement....

jeremuck

sheepish look oh...
you didn't say it was DCOM...
hehehe
"I fixed it... it still doesn't work, but at least I fixed it"
hehe such is the motto of Microsoft users.

Good luck

The_Chancer

I know - all I say is that I am now documenting everything I do, and will post it as and when I get it working....

Looks like the coding side was working, but I have looked more into the CLSID error I am getting now, which seems to refer more to having the wrong user logged into the system (and you can't change or add one if it is NT Server as a domain controller supposedly) either that or it is a DLL error...

BUT..... the javascript code of...

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> 
<!-- 
function runWord() { 
var 
wordApp = new ActiveXObject("word.Application"); 
wordApp.Visible=true; 
wordApp.documents.add(); 
wordApp.Selection.TypeText("<?=$text?>"); 
wordApp.Selection.TypeParagraph();
wordApp.Activedocument.SaveAs("<?=$file?>"); 
wordApp.Application.Quit(); 

} 
runWord();//-->

also gives an error of "The Automation server can't create object"

So definately NOT a PHP coding error, but a server related error...

I have also seen that changing over to Apache solved this problem, which seems to lie in IIS somewhere, (conflicting view I know...) this is a non starter for me though, because of the corporate IT people refusing to even try it, and denying me access to install it as well.

So back to square one... trying to get it working... I'll keep you posted...

Additional Notes
These are supplemental for anyone having the errors documented below
Known posisble errors...
Run-time error '5981' (0x800A175D): Could not open macro storage
-or-

Run-time error '1004': Method '~' of object '~' failed
Typically, this is the result of failing to initialize VBA due to insufficient permissions or due to a lack of VBA component registration, both of which are typical when a user runs code from an account with no user profile (issue #1) and the user token does not contain the Interactive SID (issue #2).

See: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q257757

Suggested Alternatives:
Most server-side Automation tasks involve document creation. Because Office 2000 and later support HTML as a native document format, most documents can be created in HTML, using Extensible Markup Language (XML) markup when needed, and streamed to a client by using a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) type so that the resulting text is displayed in Office. The document can be edited, saved, and even returned to the server when needed, by using nothing more than ASP on the server. For earlier versions of Office, other easily manipulated text formats (like RTF) can be used to the same effect.

Taken from the Microsoft website... the site which also states "Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not support, Automation of Microsoft Office applications from any unattended, non-interactive client application or component (including ASP, DCOM, and NT Services), because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock when run in this environment."

Will add more as I can...

The_Chancer

The only findings that I can add to this are to do with the logon priviledges for a WinNT server and who can run Office applications through it.

I have tested the script on different systems and they all work flawlessly, and can create the word document without a hitch.

If anyone knows of a way or what to do to get the correct logon onto the server (and run Word) would be a great help.

I have a feeling that we need to log on as IUSR_machinename and run Word like that once, but I don't know how to do that.

Anyone got any clues ?

The_Chancer

OK - I was almost there with the DCOMDNFG.EXE utility (can only be run as an administrator on NT machines..) But instead of allowing the IUSR_machinename access, allow it for the "Interactive User" this at least lets the process run. However this only runs on the server and you don't see anything on the client machine.

There is still the problem of

Warning: Type library value emptyenum is already defined and has a different value in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\testscripts\com.php on line 8

which comes up, even though the script works (to some degree)

Any ideas on that would be appreciated...

Also setting the security features to <none> (bad I know... but it is an internal network only) enables it to work - anything else means it falls over..

Any more updates will be posted. Any thoughts will be appreciated.