There is more to know here. Even with the bug fix in place it is still
possible to leave excel in memory.
These two lines will do just that.
$excel = new COM("Excel.Application");
$book = $excel->workbooks->open($file);
If you add a $book->close(FALSE); then excel goes away proerly. Thus when
you see an "exception" and you do not have a handler which "cleans up" I
suspect you are leaving yourself open to leaving excels around. I have to
say that I have not tested this behavious with either VB or Perl so I cannot
as yet assign this to M$ wierdness.
But there is a "workaround". You do not HAVE to use "$excel = new
COM("Excel.Application")" to get at excel. You can access excel using the
moniker method (just like some of the WMI and IIS examples floating around -
and like VB GetObject())
$file = 'I:\\tmp\\test1.xls';
$obj = new COM($file); # Am not entirely sure I know what it is that is
returned here
# but this code seems to work.
$excel = $obj->Application;
$book = $excel->workbooks->open($file);
$book->close(FALSE);
$excel->quit();
The value of this form is that it will "reuse" an existing copy of EXCEL. So
e.g. if you have the problem I described above you can always access the
.xls file through the monitor (file name) and ask COM to find an existing
running instance of the server to process it in (if there isn't one I do
believe it will launch one for you). This way you only have one errant
instance and not hundreds.
Alan.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Neil Lincoln" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Alan Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Scott Hurring" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
"Php-Win (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, 26 April, 2002 17:27
Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
> GREAT!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 3:24 PM
> To: Scott Hurring; Php-Win (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
>
> Not intended behaviour. A fix has been checked into CVS already.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott Hurring" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Php-Win (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 16:08
> Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
>
>
> > Neil: Go through your code and make sure there are no
> > indirect object references like $obj->obj->func();
> >
> > >From what i understand, it seems that this type of
> > construction is causing a temporary object to be
> > left around (which is, in turn, causing excel to
> > remain zombie, becuase the temp-object is never
> > properly cleaned up)
> >
> > Anyone with knowledge of COM... is this intended
> > behaviour? Do COM objects *need* a Quit() signal
> > to die, even if the program that was manipulating
> > the COM object dies (as is the case with PHP
> > finishing up and EXCEL still in memory when a
> > temp-object is not properly unset())?
> >
> > ---
> > Scott Hurring
> > Systems Programmer
> > EAC Corporation
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Voice: 201-462-2149
> > Fax: 201-288-1515
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Neil Lincoln [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 9:23 AM
> > > To: Alan Brown; Scott Hurring; Php-Win (E-mail)
> > > Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
> > >
> > >
> > > We have tried this and it doesn't help. And yes, any non
> > > normal exit from
> > > the EXCEL COM object results in a "zombie".
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Alan Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 8:00 AM
> > > To: Scott Hurring; Php-Win (E-mail)
> > > Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
> > >
> > > There is a missing "Release" call in the COM code when
> > > temporary objects are
> > > created for a construct such as
> > >
> > > $excel->application->DisplayAlerts = False;
> > >
> > > This is not as visible a problem with an inproc server as
> > > with a localserver
> > > such as Excel.
> > >
> > > It is fairly easy to work around this (until I get a real fix
> > > into the base)
> > > by breaking it up thus:
> > >
> > > $application = $excel->application;
> > > $application->DisplayAlerts = False;
> > >
> > > This has to be done in two places in the example I saw.
> > > However I note that
> > > if you put in a logic error such as this:
> > > $book = $workbooks->Open($file);
> > > $sheet = $books->Worksheets(1);
> > >
> > > After the exception a copy of Excel is still left running. I
> > > wiill look more
> > > at this over the weekend and test my Release() call on the
> > > temporary object.
> > > It seems to work, but I fear that it will break something else....
> > >
> > > Alan.
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Scott Hurring" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > To: "Php-Win (E-mail)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Sent: Thursday, 25 April, 2002 13:51
> > > Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
> > >
> > >
> > > > I'm not doing this through Apache.
> > > >
> > > > I tried out Win32 command line PHP and Perl.
> > > >
> > > > So even though it might be an issue with Excel being
> > > > owned by "SYSTEM" when run thru Apache, PHP still leaves
> > > > it open whereas Perl does not.
> > > >
> > > > (And to boot, my Apache service is configured to
> > > > RunAs my account "scott", so it shouldn't be plauged
> > > > by the "SYSTEM" ownership issue... even though
> > > > i haven't tested it)
> > > >
> > > > Please check out: http://furt.com/code/php/com_issues/
> > > > (Read 'readme.txt')
> > > >
> > > > ---
> > > > Scott Hurring
> > > > Systems Programmer
> > > > EAC Corporation
> > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > > Voice: 201-462-2149
> > > > Fax: 201-288-1515
> > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: Neil Lincoln [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > > > Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 1:20 PM
> > > > > To: Scott Hurring; Php-Win (E-mail)
> > > > > Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On our systems the EXCEL COM object executes as a member of
> > > > > "SYSTEM" instead
> > > > > of as a child of the owner of the Apache/php server. When the
> > > > > COM object
> > > > > completes it leaves the EXCEL hanging around as a child of a
> > > > > SYSTEM process.
> > > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: Scott Hurring [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > > > Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 11:59 AM
> > > > > To: Php-Win (E-mail)
> > > > > Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Excel not closing after using it via COM
> > > > >
> > > > > I went back and ran some perl code using the
> > > > > Excel COM object. Excel does properly exit...
> > > > > so it looks like you are correct -- it's
> > > > > probably a bug in PHP's COM code.
> > > > >
> > > > > Attached is is sample Perl, PHP and Excel,
> > > > > if anyone wants to verify that excel does
> > > > > indeed die after the perl script is finished,
> > > > > yet stays alive when the PHP script is
> > > > > finished.
> > > > >
> > > > > ---
> > > > > Scott Hurring
> > > > > Systems Programmer
> > > > > EAC Corporation
> > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > > > Voice: 201-462-2149
> > > > > Fax: 201-288-1515
> > > > >
> > > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > > Try
> > > > > >
> > > > > > $book->Close("False");
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Doesnt do anything.
> > > > >
> > > > > > But then one has to ask, why does it work fine from other
> > > > > > languages, e.g. Perl? If the API were broken, it would seem
> > > > > > that it would be broken regardless of the language one was
> > > > > > using.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Scott
> > > > >
> > > > > Yeah.. that's the way it seems now.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ---
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> > > > >
> > > >
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