1 / 18

Using Python to glue Windows and iSeries applications together

{ Serfs }. Using Python to glue Windows and iSeries applications together. Johan Lindberg EuroPython 2005 Nordea Life & Pensions, IT 2005-06-27 johan@pulp.se 16:30-17:00. { Serfs }. What is a glue application?.

iolana
Download Presentation

Using Python to glue Windows and iSeries applications together

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. { Serfs } Using Python to glue Windows and iSeries applications together Johan Lindberg EuroPython 2005 Nordea Life & Pensions, IT 2005-06-27 johan@pulp.se 16:30-17:00

  2. { Serfs } What is a glue application? • A glue application is a piece of code that makes two or more applications work together.

  3. { Serfs } Our example: the problem • About 300 customer letters (up to 10 pages) have to be produced manually with Microsoft Word using information from our insurance system. • Some are used very rarely, some very often and all of them take a lot of time to produce. Server Client (Windows desktop) Lifa, Insurance System (IBM iSeries) IBM Personal Communications Find values for each field in the Word template. Microsoft Word Enter the value from screen in the form field.

  4. { Serfs } Our example: a solution • The solution we decided on is a small wxPython program, distributed as a Windows executable, that performs the tasks neccessary to complete the letter. Server Client (Windows desktop) Lifa, Insurance System (IBM iSeries) IBM Personal Communications glue application Select Word template. Microsoft Word

  5. { Serfs } A first, high-level, look at our glue application (Example.py) • Find a running instance of Word (or start one). • Create a screen scraper object • Ask user which Word template to use • Create a document using the template • For each form field in document: • Read the name of the field • Read the corresponding value from screen • Write that value to the form field • Tell the user we’re done • Quit

  6. { Serfs } Application hierarchy • The glue application is split into 4 different source files Glue application Example.py UI.py Lifa.py iSeries.py Lifa, Insurance System (IBM iSeries) Word wxPy. Personal Comm.

  7. { Serfs } Example.py import win32com.client import UI, Lifa # get references to applications word= win32com.client.Dispatch(”Word.Application”) lifa= Lifa.Proxy() # ask user which template to use and create a document using it template= UI.OpenFile(u”Välj en brevmall”, ”C:\\Templates\\”, ””, ”*.dot”) doc= word.Documents.Add(template) # go through all form fields in the document ... # tell the user we’re done and quit UI.DisplayMessage(u”Klart!”) sys.exit()

  8. { Serfs } Loop through all form fields for field in doc.FormFields: if field.Name.startswith(”LIFA”): if int(field.Type)== 70: # wdFieldFormTextInput field.Result= getValueFromScreen(field.Name) elif int(field.Type)== 83: # wdFieldFormDropDown # convert screen value to drop down index result= getValueFromScreen(field.Name) if field.Name== ”LIFA010101”:# gender if result== ”M”: # male field.DropDown.Value = 1 elif result== ”K”: # female field.DropDown.Value = 2 elif ...

  9. { Serfs } A closer look at a form field • Below is the properties dialog of a Textfield in Microsoft Word. • The bookmark (field.Name property) consists of four parts: • A label (LIFA) • A page identifier (01) • A row identifier (04) • A column identifier (24)

  10. { Serfs } getValueFromScreen cache= {} def getValueFromScreen(bookmark): value= None # use cached value if it exists if bookmark in cache: value= cache[bookmark] else: page, row, col= bookmark[4:6], bookmark[6:8], bookmark[8:10] lifa.gotoPage(page) value=lifa.conn.getText(int(row), int(col)) cache[bookmark]= value return value

  11. { Serfs } The Lifa proxy object (1/2) # part of Lifa module import iSeries class Proxy: def __init__(self): self.conn= iSeries.ConnectionManager() availableConnections= self.conn.getAvailableConnections() selected= None # ask user to select a connection if there are more than one available if len(availableConnections)> 1: selected= UI.SelectOption(availableConnections) elif len(availableConnections)== 1: selected= 0 # open and set active session self.conn.openSession(availableConnections[selected]) self.conn.setActiveSession(availableConnections[selected])

  12. { Serfs } The Lifa proxy object (2/2) class Proxy: (continued) def gotoPage(self, page): onPage= False while not onPage: currPage=self.conn.getText(1, 1, 2)# page ID dp= int(page)- int(currPage) if dp== 0: onPage= True elif dp< 0: key= ”[pf9]” # F9 = previous page elif dp> 0: key= ”[pf10]” # F10 = next page self.conn.sendKeys(abs(dp), u”%s” % (key), 1, 1) ... time.sleep(1)

  13. { Serfs } The iSeries module (1/3) class ConnectionManager: def __init__(self): self.PCommConnMgr= win32com.client.Dispatch(”PCOMM.autECLConnMgr”) self.connList= self.PCommConnMgr.autECLConnList self.activeSession= None self.sessions= {} # return value from screen at position (row, col) def getText(self, row, col, length= None, session= None): result= None tempSession= self.activeSession if session is not None: tempSession= self.sessions[session] if length is None: tempSession.autECLPS.autECLFieldList.Refresh() field=tempSession.autECLPS.autECLFieldList.FindFieldByRowCol(row, col) length= field.Length result=tempSession.autECLPS.GetText(row, col, length) return result

  14. { Serfs } The iSeries module (2/3) class ConnectionManager: (continued) def sendKeys(self, count, key, row= None, col= None, session= None): n= 0 while n< count: tempSession= self.activeSession if session is not None: tempSession= self.sessions[session] if row is None or col is None: tempSession.session.autECLPS.SendKeys("%s" % (key)) else: tempSession.session.autECLPS.SendKeys("%s" % (key), row, col) n+= 1

  15. { Serfs } The iSeries module (3/3) class ConnectionManager: (continued) def getAvailableConnections(self): self.connList.Refresh() connections= [] for i in range (self.connList.Count): connections.append(self.connList(i+ 1).Name) return connections def openSession(self, session) _session=win32com.client.Dispatch("PCOMM.autECLSession") _session.SetConnectionByName(session) if not _session.Ready: _session.StartCommunication() self.sessions[session]= _session

  16. { Serfs } Part of the UI module # part of UI module import wx class OpenFileDialog(wx.FileDialog): def __init__(self, caption, dir, file, wildcard): wx.FileDialog.__init__(self, None, caption, dir, file, wildcard) def OpenFile(caption, dir, file, wildcard): path= None dialog= OpenFileDialog(caption, dir, file, wildcard) if dialog.ShowModal()== wx.ID_OK: path= dialog.GetPath() dialog.Destroy() return path

  17. { Serfs } Learn more… Python and Windows http://www.python.org/windows/ Python on iSeries http://www.iseriespython.com/ Python and COM tutorials http://www.reportlab.com/ftp/talks/PythonWindowsTutorial.doc http://starship.python.net/crew/pirx/spam7/COMtut.PPT Microsoft Office OLE documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/word/ IBM Personal Communications http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pcomhelp/topic/com.ibm.pcomm.doc/host_access08.htm

  18. { Serfs } Using Python to glue Windows and iSeries applications together This presentation, sample code and links to references can be found at: http://www.pulp.se/ep2005/ Questions?

More Related