PERL OLE connection to VSS

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,
I'm trying to use PERL to automate some tasks in MS Visual Source Safe, via OLE.
However, I can't make the link between the newly created Win32::OLE object and the methods and properties documented for SourceSafe by MS ...
i.e. I'm a PERL beginner stuck at a pretty basic hurdle I presume!

This is what I've got:

use Win32::OLE;
$vss = Win32::OLE->new('SourceSafe') or die "Can't start VSS";
$vssdb = $vss->VSSDatabase->Open($path, $user, $pwd) or die "Failed";
[download]

This fails at the last line: Can't call method "Open" on an undefined value.

Here are my questions:
i) What's specifically wrong with the above?
ii) Is there a way to discover the methods and properties available for the object returned by Win32::OLE->new()?

Thanks,
Tim

Comment on PERL OLE connection to VSS Download Code

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Re: PERL OLE connection to VSS by zakb (Pilgrim) on Oct 04, 2002 at 10:51 UTC
You will want to add 'use strict;' to the top of your code and turn on warnings using the -w command line flag or 'use warnings;'. This will help you pinpoint many syntactical and other errors. See here and here for why. You're pretty much there with your existing code, a few slight adjustments should make it work: `# the object name is actually SourceSafe.0 my $vss = Win32::OLE->new('SourceSafe.0'); # you must include the path and filename # of the vss ini file you want, e.g. # c:\data\sourcesafe\dev\srcsafe.ini $vss->Open($srcsafe_ini, $user, $pwd); # error checking if (Win32::OLE->LastError() != 0) { print 'Error: ', Win32::OLE->LastError(); }` [download] If you're using the Activestate distribution, you should be able to use the HTML OLE Browser to see properties and methods available.	[reply] [d/l]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re: PERL OLE connection to VSS
by zakb (Pilgrim) on Oct 04, 2002 at 10:51 UTC

You will want to add 'use strict;' to the top of your code and turn on warnings using the -w command line flag or 'use warnings;'. This will help you pinpoint many syntactical and other errors. See here and here for why.

You're pretty much there with your existing code, a few slight adjustments should make it work:

# the object name is actually SourceSafe.0
my $vss = Win32::OLE->new('SourceSafe.0');

# you must include the path and filename
# of the vss ini file you want, e.g.
# c:\data\sourcesafe\dev\srcsafe.ini
$vss->Open($srcsafe_ini, $user, $pwd);

# error checking
if (Win32::OLE->LastError() != 0)
{
    print 'Error: ', Win32::OLE->LastError();
}
[download]

[reply]
[d/l]