COM good on NT but fail on 2003?

4rxsid

Hi all,

I currently have php 4.3.10 loaded on a windows 2003 server running apache 2.0.52. PHP and the web server work fine. I've got the code (that used to work on an old NT box running IIS and an earlier version of PHP...I think 4.1 or 4.2??)

//.....code

$excel = new COM("Excel.Application") or Die ("Did not connect");

//Open the workbook that we want to use.
$book = $excel->Application->Workbooks->Open($reportPath.$rptName);

//....more code

Again...that used to work on NT, but now I can't get it to work on 2003. I believe the issue lies with the new COM() line, but it doesn't print out the or die statement.

I've followed the article on this site (which is how I got this Excel COM function to work with NT in the first place:
http://www.phpbuilder.net/columns/venkatesan20030501.php3
but perhaps this doesn't apply to the new win 2003 server?
I have the appropriate IUSR_MACHINE_Name user with Excel COM launch, etc. permissions.

Any ideas?
Thanks.

4rxsid

some more info...

when i run this script...nothing happens. at least that i can see. I look in the O/S event logs, nothing shows up there related to this. I look in the apache logs...nothing on this.

This script was run via the cmd line on the NT box (& should be run by cmd line on the 2003 box as well).

When I run the script (C:\somedir>theScript.php)...it pauses for about 2 seconds then just returns to the command line. I've got the php.ini file set to display all errors turned on. still, nothing is displayed in the cmd window.

P.S. I know php runs from the cmd line because i have other php scripts that run that way no problem.

4rxsid

an example of another attempt to trap an error and what's going on.

parse errror:

the code:

<?
//******************************
//Create the spreadsheet object.
//******************************

$basePath = "F:\\_jobs\\reports\\adhoc\\SomeReportDir\\";
$reportPath = $basePath."report\\SomeReport.xls";

$excel = new COM("Excel.Application") or Die ("Did not connect");
if ($excel !=== FALSE) {  //This is the error line?!?!  I even tried "FALSE".
  print "Testing output.\n";
  print $excel;
} else {
  print "Error";
  die();
}

$book = $excel->Application->Workbooks->Open($reportPath.$rptName);

?>

F:_jobs\reports\scripts>excel.php
PHP Parse error: parse error in F:_jobs\reports\scripts\excel.php on line 10
Content-type: text/html

 
Parse error: parse error in F:_jobs\reports\scripts\excel.php on
line 10 

F:_jobs\reports\scripts>

...any ideas?

Weedpacket

Looking at your code, you can see that the syntax highlighting has gone haywire. That's because the \ that Windows uses as a directory separator is the same \ that is used as an escape character in strings. You've escaped the " on the end, so it's not recognised as the end of the string.

Either use single quotes around the directory name, or use / in the directory name (they'll be converted).

4rxsid

Thanks for the info Weedpacket...but the parse error is still occuring.

Here's what I tried:

$basePath = 'F:\_jobs\reports\adhoc\SomeReportDir\';
$reportPath = $basePath.'report\reportSomeReport.xls';

and

$basePath = 'F:\\_jobs\\reports\\adhoc\\SomeReportDir\\';
$reportPath = $basePath.'report\\reportSomeReport.xls';

neither worked.

In my previous post, I had placed \ at the very end as well, but it looks like the "vB Code" cut the last \ off of the post.

Anyway, I've now tried it with \ and \\ and with double and single ticks.

And of course, the issue of not being able to create the excel COM object it still a problem.

Thanks.