Topic: Early vs Late and the GAC

[David Hall]

Ok, so I know I need to learn how to do Late binding.  That being said, I can make the MS examples work, but I cant seem to make it work from within Autocad.  In desperation to finish a project, I switched to early binding, and Jeff and a few others helped me get it working here
 
Now, I deployed it to everyone, and of course, it works on half the machines.  I have checked, and of the 2 machines it doesn't work on, they do have Excel 2007, so I am assuming the Type 12 library is there.  The error message talks about the GAC, so I came back for help.  Any ideas why it runs perfect on 1 machine and not another?

[Jeff H]

What does the error say?
 
All 64bit, 32bit, mix, etc......?

[dgorsman]

I vaguely remember coming across something about the GAC when trying to fix something else, where it mentioned that version identifiers are vitally important when pulling things out of the GAC since different versions are considered to be "different" and thus you may have multiple versions of the same assembly haunting the GAC.  Or some such.   :ugly:

[David Hall]

32bit XP Office 2007, acad 2012

Error msg System.IO.FileNotFoundException Could not load file or assembly Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel, Version = 12.0.0.0 Culture=neutral PublicKeyToken = 71e9bce111e9429c or one of its dependencies.

[David Hall]

It works on 2 machines just fine.  I just dont have a clue what its doing.

[David Hall]

Here is the dialog box

[Jeff H]

Try this one and see if it errors.
 
I uploaded it and solution is at bottom of post.
It has no references to Type 12 Library and binds at runtime(Late Binding)
 
Built with Acad .NET wizard template thingy
All it has is one command in it to open Excel with a blank workbook

Code: [Select]

[CommandMethod("OpenExcelLateBind")]
        public void OpenExcelLateBind()
        {
            Type excelType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Excel.Application");
            object exl = Activator.CreateInstance(excelType);
            object wb = exl.GetType().InvokeMember("Workbooks", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, exl, null);
            wb.GetType().InvokeMember("Add", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, wb, null);
            object[] param = new Object[1];
            param[0] = true;
            exl.GetType().InvokeMember("Visible", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, exl, param);
        }


[David Hall]

Thanks Jeff, Now to see if I can merge this with what I have.  i will be back Im sure.....

[David Hall]

OK, this is turning into a PITA!  Is everything have to be created using InvokeMember, meaning range, selected cell, columns, etc?  This being my first attempt at Late binding, i'm really lost.

[kaefer]

OK, this is turning into a PITA!  Is everything have to be created using InvokeMember, meaning range, selected cell, columns, etc?  This being my first attempt at Late binding, i'm really lost.

Cmdr,
the short answer is: yes, everything have to. But no worry, as we were all at that point sometimes before, there are a few helper methods out there, like Get, Set and Invoke.

For e.g. ranges, have again a look at this thread AutoCAD to Excel and back again, whence this code:

Code: [Select]

        // Operates on Excel's Range object only
        static object XlRangef(this object o, int r0, int c0, int r1, int c1) {
            return o.Get("Range", o.Get("Cells", r0, c0), o.Get("Cells", r1, c1));
        }


[Jeff H]

As kaefer has also mentioned in other threads since you are using 2012 you will be able to use 4.0 with dynamics
If you use solution posted you can add this command but need to add a reference to Microsoft.CSharp
 
 

Code: [Select]

  [CommandMethod("OpenExcelLateBindDynamic")]
        public void OpenExcelLateBindDynamic()
        {
            dynamic exl = Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Excel.Application"));
            dynamic wb = exl.Workbooks;
            wb.Add();
            exl.Visible = true;
        }
 


[David Hall]

thanks kaefer.  I have been studying your code along with Jeffs code to try and make this work.  I'll keep at it.

[David Hall]

Thanks Jeff, I will see if I can make that option work as well.

[Jeff H]

OK, this is turning into a PITA!  Is everything have to be created using InvokeMember, meaning range, selected cell, columns, etc?  This being my first attempt at Late binding, i'm really lost.

If you look at it as maybe as
pass in the string of name of method,
BindingFlags to let it know if it setting, getting a property or calling a method etc.....
The object it is calling the method on
a array of the parameters(size is the number of parameters) to be passed in or null if none
 

[David Hall]

ok Jeff, Im stuck again.  I got this far

Code: [Select]

Type excelType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Excel.Application");
            object exl = Activator.CreateInstance(excelType);
            object wb = exl.GetType().InvokeMember("Workbooks", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, exl, null);
           
            wb.GetType().InvokeMember("Open", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, wb, new object[] { strMyFile });
            object[] param = new Object[1];
            param[0] = true;
            exl.GetType().InvokeMember("Visible", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, exl, param);
            param[0] = false;
            exl.GetType().InvokeMember("UserControl", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, exl, param);
           
            param[0] = "Sheet1";
            object ws = exl.GetType().InvokeMember("Sheets", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, exl, param);
           
            object rng = exl.GetType().GetProperty("Range", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, null );
but I cant seem to create or set a Range object.  I have tried every BindingFlags prop I can think might work.
 
I also tried ws.GetType, but that didn't work either