Creates an OLE Automation object of the specified class.

Note CreateObject is not supported under OS/2 or UNIX. It is supported on the Macintosh as long as OLE support is installed.

Syntax

CreateObject ( className )

Elements

className

A string of the form appName.appClass, designating the kind of object to create (for example, "WordPro.Application").

The appName is an application that supports OLE Automation.

The appClass is the class of the object to create. Products that support OLE Automation provide one or more classes. See the product documentation for details.

CreateObject returns a reference to an OLE Automation object.

Usage

Use the Set statement to assign the object reference returned by CreateObject to a Variant variable.

If the application is not already running, CreateObject starts it before creating the OLE Automation object. References to the object remain valid only while the application is running. If the application terminates while you are using the object reference, LotusScript raises a run-time error.

LotusScript supports the OLE vartypes listed in the table below. Only an OLE method or property can return a vartype designated as "OLE only."

OLE vartype	Description
VT_EMPTY	(No data)
VT_NULL	(No data)
VT_I2	2-byte signed integer
VT_I4	4-byte signed integer
VT_R4	4-byte real
VT_R8	8-byte real
VT_CY	Currency
VT_DATE	Date
VT_BSTR	String
VT_DISPATCH	IDispatch, OLE only
VT_ERROR	Error, OLE only
VT_BOOL	Boolean
VT_DECIMAL	Decimal, converted to Double
VT_VARIANT	(A reference to data of any other type)
VT_UNKNOWN	IUnknown, OLE only
VT_ARRAY	(An array of data of any other type)

LotusScript supports iterating over OLE collections with a ForAll statement.

LotusScript supports passing arguments to OLE properties. For example:

' Set v.prop to 4; v.prop takes two arguments.
v.prop(arg1, arg2) = 4

LotusScript does not support identifying arguments for OLE methods or properties by name rather than by the order in which they appear, nor does LotusScript support using an OLE name by itself (without an explicit property) to identify a default property.

Results are unspecified for arguments to OLE methods and properties of type boolean, byte, and date that are passed by reference. LotusScript does not support these data types.

The word CreateObject is not a LotusScript keyword.

Example
See Also

LotusScript Language Reference: A through D
GetObject function
Set statement
ForAll statement
OS/2 platform differences in LotusScript
UNIX platform differences in LotusScript
OS/400 platform differences in LotusScript

Glossary