I'm doing some Web-based integration work with a Win32 program called ACT!, and I've run into a snag. Using Win32::OLE, one of the object posts an (erroneous) error to the console and waits for a keypress before continuing. Since the error is erroneous, the rest of the program works fine as long as it gets past the keypresses.

From a Web back-end, though, I can't figure out how to trick the OLE process into thinking it's recieved the keypresses. I can close and re-open STOUT just fine, but STDIN doesn't want to budge.

Any ideas?

The code looks a little like this:

use Win32::OLE;
use IO::String;
use Win32::Console;

my $objDatabase;

# use existing instance if Act is already running
eval {$objDatabase = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('ACTOLE.DATABASE')};
die "ACT not installed" if $@;

unless (defined $objDatabase) {
  $objDatabase = Win32::OLE->new('ACTOLE.DATABASE', sub {$_[0]->Close;
+})
            or die "Can't start ACT";
}

# duplicate STDOUT and STDIN because of a bug in ACT
# this only works for STDOUT, not STDIN
open(TEMPOUT, ">&STDOUT") || die("Cannot duplicate STDOUT: $!");
close STDOUT;

# this one doesn't work
# my $fake_stdin = "b\na\nd\nthing\n";
# tie *STDIN, 'IO::String', \$fake_stdin;

# this one doesn't work, either
my $STDIN = Win32::Console->new(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
$STDIN->WriteInput(1, TRUE, 3, 1, 1, 0, 0);

# this line is the culprit
# it waits for three keypresses
$objDatabase->Open('C:\chris\contacts.DBF');

# restore STDIN
open(STDOUT, ">&TEMPOUT") || die("Cannot restore STDOUT: $!");
close TEMPOUT;

# after this, it works fine
[download]

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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