COMEXCEL Sample: Demonstrates an Automation Client Application with Compiler COM Support

COMEXCEL is a standalone Automation client. It creates a new Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and generates a pie chart of the data stored on that spreadsheet. This sample works only with Microsoft Excel, which exposes the dispinterfaces.

Security Note:
This sample code is provided to illustrate a concept and should not be used in applications or Web sites, as it may not illustrate the safest coding practices. Microsoft assumes no liability for incidental or consequential damages should the sample code be used for purposes other than as intended.

To get samples and instructions for installing them:

• On the Visual Studio Help menu, click Samples.

  For more information, see Visual Studio Samples.

• The most recent version and complete list of samples is available online from the Visual Studio 2008 Samples page.

• You can also locate samples on your computer's hard disk. By default, samples and a Readme file are copied into a folder under \Program Files\Visual Studio 9.0\Samples\. For Express editions of Visual Studio, all samples are located online.

Building and Running the Sample

Make sure that the #import reference to COMEXCEL.exe in the sample's source code is correct for your computer.

To build this sample within Visual C++, determine which version of Excel you have on your computer and then look in the appropriate COMEXCEL sample directory.

To build and run this sample

1. Open the solution comexcel.sln.

2. If you are using Excel 2000, modify the following line in comexcel.cpp:

   #define OFFICE_VER OFFICEXP
   

   to instead be:

   #define OFFICE_VER OFFICE2000
   

3. On the Build menu, click Build Solution.

4. On the Debug menu, click Start Without Debugging.

Keywords

This sample demonstrates the following keywords:

dispinterface; #import; _com_ptr_t; _variant_t; _bstr_t; _com_error

See Also

Reference

Compiler COM Support

Other Resources

Compiler COM Support Samples

General Samples