Win32::OLE Outlook Error

[cormanaz]

Greetings Bros. I am working on some Outlook automation and have started out by just trying to print the contents of some message fields like so:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Win32::OLE;

$| = 1;
# use existing instance if Outlook is already running, or launce a new
+ one
my $ol;
eval {$ol = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Outlook.Application')};
die "Outlook not installed" if $@;
unless (defined $ol) {
  $ol = Win32::OLE->new('Outlook.Application', sub {$_[0]->Quit;})
    or die "Oops, cannot start Outlook";
}

my $mailbox = seekFolder($ol->Session, '[e-mail]');
my $folder = seekFolder($mailbox, 'Inbox');

my @fields = qw(SenderName    SenderEmailAddress    ReplyRecipientName
+s    SenderEmailType    SentOn    ReceivedTime    MessageClass    Siz
+e    Subject    To    CC    BCC    Unread    InternetCodepage    Impo
+rtance    EntryID    ConversationIndex    ConversationTopic    Class 
+   BodyFormat
);

my $end = $folder->Items->Count;


for (my $i = $end;  $i > $end-5; $i--) {
    print "===========================================================
+===========\n";
    foreach my $k (@fields) {
       print "$k: ".$folder->Items->Item($i)->{$k} . "\n";
    }
}
Win32::OLE->FreeUnusedLibraries();

sub seekFolder {
  my $obj = shift;
  my $target = shift;

  for (my $i = 1; $i <= $obj->Folders->Count; $i++) {
    if ( $obj->Folders->Item($i)->Name eq $target ) {
      return $obj->Folders->Item($i);
    }
  }
}

It works fine for the most part, but when there is an empty field in the message object I get an OLE error like:

Win32::OLE(0.1709) error 0x8002000e: "Invalid number of parameters"
    in METHOD/PROPERTYGET "InternetCodepage" at C:\recover\boxcutter\n
+ewtry\test.pl line 27.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at C:\recove
+r\boxcutter\newtry\test.pl line 27.

I tried to avoid this by enclosing the print statement in an if defined clause, but this does not change anything. Anyone know how to avoid this error?

[Anonymous Monk]

Anyone know how to avoid this error?

Sure, satisfy the API and/or trap the error

...

my $end = $folder->Items->Count;
for my $ix ( reverse $end-5 .. $end ){
    print "==========" x 7, "\n";
    my $item = $folder->Items->Item( $ix );
    for my $field ( @fields ){
##        my $val = eval { $item->{ $field } };
        my $val;
        eval {
            $val = $item->{ $field };
            1
        } or do {
            warn "uhoh $folder $ix $item $field : $@ ";
            next;
        };
        print "$field: $val\n";
    }
}

...

my $count = $obj->Folders->Count;
for my $ix ( 1 .. $count ){
    my $item = $obj->Folders->Item($i);
    return $item if $item->name eq $target 
}

[cormanaz]

Thanks. I suppose I should have thought of that. The weird thing is that it has stopped happening with the original code, for reasons unknown :-/

UPDATE: Well I spoke too soon. It is happening again, which is weird in itself, and suggests the cause is not an empty field. I don't understand the message about parameters, because the function call has the same number of parameters when I get the error and when I don't.

Also eval does not trap the error -- it does so for the perl statement, but OLE still throws the error.