> Hi, I'm hoping someone might provide some COM dispatching > insights as I'm relatively new to it in Python. Does using static > binding provide for better garbage collection when the dispatched class > has dispatched classes of it's own?
Nope - it should make no difference. > The nitty gritty... > > I'm dispatching a registered class, HelpDesk, from python that > in turn automates another class, TicketList (has no API that Python can > use and there's no support for either class in order to know the full > details of the interaction). The ListTicket class provides a portion of > the GUI within the HelpDesk GUI the user sees. Basically, I'm > automating HelpDesk to pull info from it for my own GUI add-on and don't > care about TicketList; however, HelpDesk will always start ListTicket > and pass information to it and I can't prevent that. So here's the > problem situation... > If a user closes the HelpDesk instance I've dispatched, the GUI > closes but the actual .exe stays running under task man. This appears > to happen because my program hasn't yet detected the close and set the > saved instance var to None. Sometimes setting it to None under this > condition even causes an error in the hung HelpDesk .exe which doesn't > appear as an exception in Python, so I tend to use ProcessTerminate when > I detect the hung .exe. The ListTicket program dispatched by HelpDesk > no longer appears in task man; however, after I kill the HelpDesk prog > and re-dispatch a new instance, the interaction between HelpDesk and > ListTicket doesn't work correctly, i.e. ListTicket prompts the user for > a piece of info that has already been provided to HelpDesk, one which it > never asks for normally. Sometimes it even appears that ListTicket was > really still running (according to win32process.EnumProcesses). I'm > doing dynamic instead of static binding of the HelpDesk class and I was > wondering if anyone thought this might be the root cause, i.e. any ideas > if using static binding would provide for better garbage collection when > the dispatched class has dispatched classes of it's own? There is no "garbage collection" happening here and it is a tricky problem (that may just be a bug in HelpDesk) - you have a reference to the COM object, and nothing is capable of knowing the app is dead and the reference is "invalid". If you can hook events from HelpDesk, just hook the close event and release your reference that this point - the app should then cleanly shut down - otherwise try setting the app to invisible, so the user can't close it! Using win32com.client.DispatchEx() will often start a second instance of an application where win32com.client.Dispatch() would reuse an existing one - so you may be able to get your own "private" instance running... Mark _______________________________________________ Python-win32 mailing list Python-win32@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-win32
