Creating permanent objects through automation and VB

[Karen_Johnson@bd.com]

I'm answering Karl's VBA question to the list because it brings up other
questions I have been meaning to ask.

I presently use S Plus 2000 and use VBA to create permanent objects with
out any trouble.  The short answer is use the assign function.  In S Plus
2000 there is a worked example the Automation chapter of online
Programmer's Guide.  Files are in samples/oleauto/vba in the S Plus program
folder.  There are additional examples in chapter 9 of S Programming.  I
haven't tried it in version 6 yet and would be interested in knowing your
success.

Here is a short summary of how I do it.
*  create a function in S Plus, make an argument for each input
*  the function and argument names need to be valid in S Plus AND VBA so
use RespDF instead of resp.df
*  everything is sent over as a data.frame (regardless of VBA definition)
so you may want to unlist simpler inputs
*  register the S Plus function
     AutoSum <- function(input1, input2){
          output <- input1 + input2
          assign("out", output, where = 1)
     }
     register.ole.object("AutoSum")

In VBA get the inputs ready (here named pInput1 and pInput2) and put the
following code in you sub
     Dim AutoSum As Object
     Set AutoSum = CreateObject("S-Plus.AutoSum")
     AutoSum.input2 = pInput1
     AutoSum.input1 = pInput2
     AutoSum.Run
     Set AutoSum = Nothing

This should create the object "out" as a permanent object.

My questions:
*  Is there a way to send object types other than dataframes?, specifically
I am interested in sending 3 or 4 dimensional arrays.  The objects exist in
both languages so it seems reasonable to be able to send them.
*  Is there an advantage to using ".BeginTransaction" /
".CommitTransaction" over the way outlined above?  There are a lot of
examples but they aren't clear why it is needed.

Thanks, Karen

Hi,

I've been playing around with S-Plus 6 (Windows 2000) using Visual Basic as
an automation client to read and write data.frame objects in S-Plus. I can
read them fine, but those that are written to S-Plus disappear when the
Visual Basic automation client application exits.

While I can see that this would be the intended behaviour for an automation
client object is a way to make the created data.frame objects permanent in
S-plus?

Thanks for any advice

Karl


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Karl Nissen
Programmer/System administrator                         Phone:  (+61 2)
6125 4613
School of Resources, Environment and Society            Fax:    (+61 2)
6125 3770
The Australian National University                      e-mail:
karl.nissen@anu.edu.au
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