COM Question

[abc123]

I have recently started looking at COM for creating better php applications on Windows. I think I have the basic concept of that it is about having a common model so that you can access applications such as word, excel etc that are aware of COM.

While I have done a lot of searching I have been unable to find a resource on all the available functions. For example I have seen examples on how to open up a word document and save it. What other functions are there? Where do I look or find them?

Any pointers would be helpful and also I hope that I've actually understood exactly what COM is all about.

Thanks for your help. 🙂

[qolbu]

presentasi

[MarkR]

It should be noted that many COM classes (which are actually OLE automation interfaces into e.g. Word, Excel), are implemented in a way which makes them unsuitable for server applications.

Never use COM interfaces into (e.g.) MSWord or MSExcel in a production environment. These applications are not designed for server usage and do not function correctly in this environment, despite your best efforts.

What usually happens is that MSWord etc, appears to "hang" in a production environment. What normally happens is:

-MSWord does not send OLE errors, instead it pops up dialogue boxes for the (nonexistent) user
- File locking done by office applications is not conducive to correct behaviour in a server environment (e.g. multiple instances of MSWord operating on the same document)
- As soon as one copy of MSWord has locked, it will probably take some mutext/lock which then locks up all subsequent ones
- More copies of MSWord get loaded each time
- More and more memory get used
- Server virtual memory is exhausted and everything stops

Mark