[Wtr-general] Can I attach to an open Excel session?

[Chris McMahon]

>
> Excel sheet saves and executes ruby code


This is kind of an odd arrangement.

My idea is to get Ruby/Watir to write those results directly from the table
> to the OPEN spreadsheet, saving the tester the extra step of hitting the
> "Results" button.  (Am I coddling the testers too much here?)


Try this:  Open a spreadsheet in Excel.  Now start another Excel process and
try to open the file.  What happens?  I get a message "file is locked for
editing...".  What do you think the Ruby process is going to encounter when
it tries to open the file and write to it?

I would strongly suggest that you not use Excel to generate code and launch
processes.  Excel is not designed for that, and I believe that this is only
the first of many problems you'll encounter if you keep down this path.  I
could be wrong of course, but the normal way to do this is to have programs
read and write to and from Excel, not to attempt to have Excel push data
into and out of programs.
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