$a = $b or $c;              # bug: this is wrong
           ($a = $b) or $c;            # really means this
           $a = $b || $c;              # better written this way
[download]

I think your suggestion to check the value of $Excel is a good one. However, the reference to perlop doesn't seem relevant here.

I'm guessing you're talking about this bit:

my $Excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')
    or Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application', 'Quit')
    or die "Could not start excel";
[download]

This doesn't look like a $x = $y || $z assignment to me. It looks as if it's trying to GetActiveObject(), and if that fails, try to quit Excel. If that fails, just die.

Now that I look at it, the problem may be that GetActiveObject() fails, quitting Excel succeeds, and the script then doesn't die. It goes on to try to use (the bogus) $Excel anyway. So I'd try this:

my $Excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application');
if ( ! $Excel ) {
    Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application', 'Quit');
    die 'Could not start Excel';
}
[download]

If using or was truly desired,

my $Excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')
   or do { Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application', 'Quit');
           die "Could not start excel";
         };
[download]

Can't call method "Workbooks" on unblessed reference

...

my $book = $Excel->Workbooks->Open( $excel_template ) or die ; # open 
+Excel file
[download]

You don't need to bless anything most likely. That error is telling you that $Excel doesn't contain an object and so you can't call a method on it.

bless() is used in creating objects, so to make the error message make more sense think of it as "Can't call method Workbook on a non-object"

Hello dear Monks,

Thank you all for your help

This seems to be second strange bug I'm facing with perl / apache / excel.

this morning I went back to the code which first gave me error :

    my $Excel = Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application') or die "Could not
+ start excel";

    $Excel->{'Visible'}     = 0;
    $Excel->{DisplayAlerts} = 0;


    my $Book = $Excel->Workbooks->Open ( $excel_template ) 
        or die "Could not open excel template $excel_template"; # open
+ Excel file
    

    my $Sheet = $Book->Worksheets(1) or die "Could not get Worksheet i
+n $excel_template";


    $Sheet->Cells( 9 ,  7 )->{Value} = "$name";

[download]

and it works again !?

If anyone has an idea where to search ? apache / perl / OLE / excel ?

Have a nice day

"There is only one good, namely knowledge, and only one evil, namely ignorance." Socrates