Thanks for the reply. I'm afraid I'm getting the same result with a safearray:

my $cwidths = Variant(VT_BSTR|VT_ARRAY, [1,371]);
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has the same effect (LastError = 0, nothing in $cwidths) and

my $cwidths = Variant(VT_BSTR|VT_ARRAY|VT_BYREF, [1,371]);
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produces an "invalid callee" OLE error. Also as I don't know how many variables there are I actually need a dynamic array - is it possible to create one of these? Thanks, Steve