I've spent several hours trying to sort data in OpenOffice Calc in Delphi. I tried to follow the examples in basic (from "OpenOffice.org Macros Explained"*) or C#, but still no result. Data wont change at all. What am i doing wrong? Maybe the problem is with data types?
*https://www.pitonyak.org/OOME_3_0.pdf, page 488.
Minimal reproducible example:
program OpenOfficeCalcSortingIssue;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
uses
System.SysUtils, Variants, ComObj, ActiveX;
var
StarOffice: OleVariant;
SODesktop: OleVariant;
SOCalc: OleVariant;
CalcSheets: OleVariant;
CalcSheet: OleVariant;
SortFields: OleVariant;
SortDescriptor: OleVariant;
begin
CoInitialize(nil);
try
try
StarOffice:=CreateOleObject('com.sun.star.ServiceManager');
SODesktop:=StarOffice.CreateInstance('com.sun.star.frame.Desktop');
SOCalc:=SODesktop.LoadComponentFromURL('private:factory/scalc', '_blank', 0, VarArrayCreate([0, -1], varVariant));
CalcSheets:=SOCalc.GetSheets;
CalcSheet:=CalcSheets.GetByIndex(0);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 0).SetValue(2);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 1).SetValue(1);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 2).SetValue(4);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 3).SetValue(3);
SortFields:=VarArrayCreate([0, 0], varVariant);
SortFields[0]:=StarOffice.Bridge_GetStruct('com.sun.star.util.SortField');
SortFields[0].Field:=0;
SortFields[0].SortAscending:=True;
SortDescriptor:=VarArrayCreate([0, 0], varVariant);
SortDescriptor[0]:=StarOffice.Bridge_GetStruct('com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue');
SortDescriptor[0].Name:='SortFields';
SortDescriptor[0].Value:=SortFields;
CalcSheet.GetCellRangeByName('A1:A4').Sort(SortDescriptor);
except
on E: Exception do
Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
end;
finally
CoUninitialize;
end;
end.
As usual, solution came shortly after exposing the problem to the world :-) I've found an example from the depths of Internet. Hope this topic on SO will be googled a way more easily by people who stumbled into this issue. The answer is: SortFields is not just a variants array. It is a "Value Object" and must be set like this:
ValueObject:=StarOffice.Bridge_GetValueObject;
ValueObject.Set('[]com.sun.star.table.TableSortField', SortFields);
In example that i found it is commented "you must specify which type of sequence is transmitted to SortFields property".
So the whole code should be:
StarOffice:=CreateOleObject('com.sun.star.ServiceManager');
SODesktop:=StarOffice.CreateInstance('com.sun.star.frame.Desktop');
SOCalc:=SODesktop.LoadComponentFromURL('private:factory/scalc', '_blank', 0, VarArrayCreate([0, -1], varVariant));
CalcSheets:=SOCalc.GetSheets;
CalcSheet:=CalcSheets.GetByIndex(0);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 0).SetValue(2);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 1).SetValue(1);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 2).SetValue(4);
CalcSheet.GetCellByPosition(0, 3).SetValue(3);
SortFields:=VarArrayCreate([0, 0], varVariant);
SortFields[0]:=StarOffice.Bridge_GetStruct('com.sun.star.table.TableSortField');
SortFields[0].Field:=0;
SortFields[0].IsAscending:=True;
ValueObject:=StarOffice.Bridge_GetValueObject;
ValueObject.Set('[]com.sun.star.table.TableSortField', SortFields);
SortDescriptor:=VarArrayCreate([0, 0], varVariant);
SortDescriptor[0]:=StarOffice.Bridge_GetStruct('com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue');
SortDescriptor[0].Name:='SortFields';
SortDescriptor[0].Value:=ValueObject;
CalcSheet.GetCellRangeByName('A1:A4').Sort(SortDescriptor);