win32com ChartObject pythonwin vs idle

[sterling]

On Jul 31, 4:28 am, Tim Golden <m... at timgolden.me.uk> wrote:
> sterling wrote:
> > I'm curious as to why the difference between IDLE and pythonWin when
> > using win32com.
> > opening an excel file, i've attempted to grab the chart information
> > out of the file.
>
> > commands like co = ChartObjects(1)  works in pythonWin but doesn't
> > work in IDLE.
>
> > however, on both co = chartobjects(1) works just fine.
>
> I can't speak for IDLE vs PythonWin but in general
> case-sensitivity of win32com stuff is related to
> early vs late Dispatch. If you've explicitly generated
> proxy modules for the Excel objects (via makepy,
> EnsureDispatch or whatever) then those are Python
> modules with case-sensitivity. If you're using dynamic
> dispatch then Python is simply passing your attribute
> name along to COM, which isn't case-sensitive, so either
> case will work.
>
> Not sure why IDLE vs PythonWin should make a difference
> here, but maybe the above explanation sheds some light...
>
> TJG

Thanks Tim.  I'm wondering if it's an OS issues with Vista (I'm
strangly ashamed to admit that both my laptop and main computer are
running it).
I decided to try the same code on my main computer (do most of my work
on my laptop) and the exact same thing has happened: I can run it in
pythonwin and not idle.
I found that I can't even run Open (I must have been running open()
previously):
i.e.
>>> import win32com.client
>>> ex = win32com.client.Dispatch("Excel.Application")
>>> wb = ex.Workbooks.Open("C:\Temp\SalesChart.xls")

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
    wb = ex.Workbooks.Open("C:\Temp\SalesChart.xlsx")
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py",
line 467, in __getattr__
    if self._olerepr_.mapFuncs.has_key(attr): return
self._make_method_(attr)
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py",
line 295, in _make_method_
    methodCodeList =
self._olerepr_.MakeFuncMethod(self._olerepr_.mapFuncs[name],
methodName,0)
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\build.py", line
297, in MakeFuncMethod
    return self.MakeDispatchFuncMethod(entry, name, bMakeClass)
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\build.py", line
318, in MakeDispatchFuncMethod
    s = linePrefix + 'def ' + name + '(self' + BuildCallList(fdesc,
names, defNamedOptArg, defNamedNotOptArg, defUnnamedArg, defOutArg) +
'):'
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\build.py", line
604, in BuildCallList
    argName = MakePublicAttributeName(argName)
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\build.py", line
542, in MakePublicAttributeName
    return filter( lambda char: char in valid_identifier_chars,
className)
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\build.py", line
542, in <lambda>
    return filter( lambda char: char in valid_identifier_chars,
className)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0x83 in position
52: ordinal not in range(128)


but the exact same code works in PythonWin. Perhaps I will just find a
way to code everything I want in the older lowercase.