🚀 Uniface & Excel: Automating Spreadsheets like a Pro (Part 1)

Hello developers! 👋

Have you ever needed to generate a complex report in Excel or import data directly from a spreadsheet into your Uniface application? While CSVs are great, sometimes you need the full power of Excel—formatting, formulas, and multiple sheets. 📊

In this series, we are going to explore how to interact with Microsoft Excel directly from Uniface using COM automation. It’s a powerful technique that bridges the gap between your business logic and the world's most popular spreadsheet tool.

What are we building?

We will look at a sample project that demonstrates:

Starting Excel from Uniface.
Reading data from cells.
Writing data back to the sheet.
Handling the cleanup (preventing zombie processes! 🧹).

The "Secret Sauce": COM Automation

Uniface communicates with Excel via COM (Component Object Model). Think of Uniface as the puppeteer and Excel as the puppet. You pull the strings (call operations), and Excel dances (performs actions). 💃

To make this work, you need:

Uniface (9.7 or 10.x)
Microsoft Excel installed on the machine running the application.
COM Signatures: These are Uniface definitions that map the Excel COM objects (like Application, Workbook, Range) to Uniface components.

A Sneak Peek at the Code 🧐

Starting Excel is surprisingly simple in Uniface ProcScript. Here is a snippet from the sample project:

variables
  handle vExcelHandle
endvariables

; Create instance of Excel Application
newinstance "APPLICATION", vExcelHandle

; Make Excel visible (optional, good for debugging)
vExcelHandle->SET_VISIBLE(1)

Just like that, an Excel window pops up! 🪄