Odd crash involving Spreadsheet::WriteExcel

[blue_cowdawg]

Consider the following code sniglet:

  $worksheet->merge_range(intToRange($row,$column,$row,$column+5),
                "EDMTA Instances",$title_fmt);
  $row++;
  if ( $#edmta_instances < 0 ) { 
    $worksheet->write($row++,$column+1,"None");
  } else { 
    foreach my $edmta(@edmta_instances){
      $worksheet->write($row++,$column+1,$edmta);
    }
  }

  $row++;
  my $range = intToRange($row,$column,$row,$column+5);
  printf "%s\n",$range;
  my $title_fmt2 = $workbook->add_format(
                 valign => 'vcenter', 
                    align=>'center');
  $worksheet->merge_range($range,"INET Instances",$title_fmt2);

The first call to merge_range works fine, and the second bombs with:

Incorrect number of arguments at ./mailoutInventory.pl line 285
Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq (==) at /usr/lib/perl5/site_p
+erl/5.14.2/Spreadsheet/WriteExcel/Workbook.pm line 1545 during global
+ destruction.
        (in cleanup) Can't call method "_prepare_images" on unblessed 
+reference at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.14.2/Spreadsheet/WriteExcel/W
+orkbook.pm line 1546 during global destruction.

The range I'm trying to set is KW1:KW6 (or row 389) which doesn't seem outrageous to me.

Thoughts anyone? Anybody else run into this sort of issue?

[Corion]

My guess is that $range does not contain what you think it does and/or that intToRange returns a list where you expect it to return a scalar?

I assume that intToRange is something like Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Utility::xl_range_formula, but the current documentation for Spreadsheet::WriteExcel documents ->merge_range as

->merge_range($first_row, $first_col, $last_row, $last_col, $token, $f
+ormat, $utf_16_be)

... so the call to intToRange seems completely unnecessary.

[jmcnamara]

I'd say Corion is right here.

As an aside, I tend to debug a lot of this type of issues, in the first instance, with Devel::SimpleTrace:

    perl -wMDevel::SimpleTrace program.pl

--
John.

[blue_cowdawg]

After using Devel::SimpleTrace I discovered that the messages I was seeing were misleading. The issue was actually happening during the automatic close of the workbook object as the script was exiting.

After I added

     $workbook->close();

prior to the steps I take to email the spreadsheet that is created the errors went away.

Much thanks to Corion and jmcnamara for the assist.