• IncludingTypelibs

Description

Typically when dealing with 3rd party COM libraries (eg. Office), you make use of the constants defined in that library. Once makepy creates the typelib for you, using these constants is normally easy in python. You only need to import win32com.client.constants to access them.

However, since these typelibs aren't really imported, py2exe needs to be told to include them in your setup-script.

Solution 1

Here's how I'm importing the typelib for Excel XP:

setup.py:

   1  ...
   2  setup(
   3         ...,
   4         options = {"py2exe": {"typelibs": [('{00020813-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}',0,1,4)]}},
   5         ...
   6       )

So, as you can see, it's an option in the options dictionary, containing a list of the typelibs you need. Each typelib being represtented as a tuple of (CLSID, LCID, MajorVersion, MinorVersion) - all of which numbers you can find in the typelib file itself.

You can print out these magic numbers by running the makepy script with the -i command line option.

Solution 2

That solution was the easier one for py2exe 0.4, but it still works:

cd \python23\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client
python makepy.py -o {MyProjectDirectory}\OLE_Excel10.py

within the software change:

   1 import win32com.client
   2 o = win32com.client.Dispatch("Excel.Application")
   3 o.Method()
   4 o.property = "New Value"
   5 print o.property

(taken from M. Hammonds documentation "Quick Start to Client side COM and Python")

to

   1 import OLE_Excel10 as Excel
   2 _ec=Excel.constants
   3 
   4 o = Excel.Application()
   5 o.Method()
   6 o.property = "New Value"
   7 print o.property

I believe that Solution 2 is not correct. It will work if you happen to be on a machine that has python installed, but if your goal is to use py2exe to distribute an application to machines that don't have python (and win32com) installed, then I don't think it will work. What the py3exe stuff in Solution 1 does is incorporate the generated win32com wrappers into the py2exe stuff. -Alec Wysoker

Solution 3

The downside of Solution 1 is that the machine on which the py2exe app runs must have the same version of the typelib as the one specified in setup.py. I am finding that for the app I want to communicate with (iTunes) there are multiple versions out there. Ideally, one should let win32com generate the typelib wrapper dynamically, so that one can be generated for whatever version is on the machine on which the py2exe app is running. The problem is that win32com figures out that it is being run from a zipfile (a read-only module store) so it decides that it shouldn't try to dynamically generate the typelib wrapper.

The solution, amazingly, is to simply tell win32com that is is OK to dynamically generate code, like this:

import win32com.client
win32com.client.gencache.is_readonly=False

Then, you can get a reference to a COM object in the normal win32com fashion:

iTunes = win32com.client.Dispatch("iTunes.Application")

This causes win32com to magically generate the modules it needs, and import them appropriately. The files go into a temp directory. This works for me with py2exe 0.6.3.

-Alec Wysoker

I have found there is a little more to Solution 3 than just setting the gencache value is_readonly to False. In particular, one needs to make sure that the gen_py directory does not exist in the win32com package deployed, or the win32com.__init__.py will attempt to use that instead of the one in the temp directory. Secondly, I've also found that if the gen_py directory has not yet been created in the temp directory, that win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch('<your_com_object>') can fail on an initial run, but work when you run your program a second time (since gen_py now exists).

So my steps to a successful use of dynamically created typelib wrappers under py2exe are:

1. Make sure that the win32com\gen_py does not exist in your build source, or at least in your packaged app. (Using VirtualEnv can make this easier.)

2. Also run GetGeneratePath(). This ensures that the gen_py directory is already created before use. So we end up with:

import win32com.client
win32com.client.gencache.is_readonly=False
win32com.client.gencache.GetGeneratePath()

• If running as a Windows Service, don't forget to call pythoncom.CoInitialize() or pythoncom.CoInitializeEx(pythoncom.COINIT_MULTITHREADED).

-Rasjid Wilcox

There is a converse solution to the third method. Instead of telling the program at run-time that it is OK to dynamically create files. Let it by OK by making the area where it would be not "read only." While this is not very neat to the distribution directory, it gets the job done. To do this, simply add skip archive to the set up call like so:

setup(
   console=['HELLO_MAIN.py'],
   options={
       "py2exe":{
            "skip_archive": True
                }
        }
)

-Thomas MacKay