VBScript kills program before text file is made - python

I made a vbscript to open an excel doc, then runs a python program that pulls data from the documents tables and prints it to a text file. The script is supposed to wait until the python program is done creating the text doc then close the excel doc, but for whatever reason my python program closes before it even has a chance to make that text doc.
I even changed the python code to just print a simple 'Hello World' into a new text document in case pulling data from excel was causing problems but the text document still wasn't created.
This is the script that i'm running:
Set xl = CreateObject("Excel.application")
xl.Application.Workbooks.Open "C:\Users\V\Documents\_PROGRAMS_\TEST.xlsx"
xl.Application.Visible = True
Dim oshell
Set oshell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
oshell.CurrentDirectory = "C:\Users\V\Documents\_PROGRAMS_\"
windowStyle = 1
waitUntilFinished = True
oshell.run "python table.py", windowStyle, waitUntilFinished
xl.Application.Quit
I don't think adding the python program is important since that isn't really the problem. Although I will say that I tried putting a delay in the python program to see if that would change anything (it didn't).
I though adding the two extra arguments to .run would make it wait until the process is finished but I guess I must be missing something?
I'm just starting to learn how to use vbscript so any explanations of code would be welcomed!
Thanks!
EDIT: So after more testing it seems that it does have something to do with accessing the excel document, as just printing 'Hello World' to a file did actually work and the file was created (I made it in the wrong directory by accident so I was looking in the wrong place). But trying it with the data from the excel document no file is created, the program just ends
So here's the python code I wrote:
#!/usr/bin/python27
import pandas as pd
table = pd.read_excel("TEST.xlsx") #Get excel doc
file = open("text.txt", "w") #Open new file
file.write(table.columns.values) #Print out column headers
file.write("Hello!")
file.close()

Related

Apply Worksheet_Change, to cell updated by Python code, to copy the updated cell data to another worksheet

I have the following script to fetch dynamically changing data in cell F60 on a worksheet. It is a stock price which constantly changes. This data is fetched by a Python code and is working.
I need to record this F60 data on another sheet within the same workbook every time it changes, without deleting the previously recorded data.
When I enter values manually in F60, I see all these values one by one on the destination sheet.
If the data is updated automatically (by Python code), I see the time stamp and not the data.
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
On Error GoTo Whoa
Application.EnableEvents = False
If Not Intersect(Target, Range("F60")) Is Nothing Then
Dim x
Dim NR As Long
With Application
.EnableEvents = False
x = Target.Value
On Error Resume Next
With Sheets("Sheet2")
NR = .Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row + 1
.Range("A" & NR).Value = Now
.Range("B" & NR).Value = x
End With
On Error GoTo 0
.EnableEvents = True
End With
End If
Letscontinue:
Application.EnableEvents = True
Exit Sub
Whoa:
MsgBox Err.Description
Resume Letscontinue
End Sub
Let me post my comment as answer:
The Worksheet_Change-event is triggered only if data is modified within Excel (the program itself), either because a user typed or because a VBA code wrote something into one or more cells.
It can't be triggered if you write it via Python (or any other program). Python doesn't open (the Application) Excel and therefore no VBA environment is available. VBA needs it's host program (in your case that's Excel) to run. If Python writes the data, it also needs to write the data into your "history" sheet.
Think of it vice versa: You have a text file (or any other file). If you write something into this file using Excel/VBA, you can't expect that a piece of Python code runs automatically and does something with the data.

workbook save failing, not sure why

I apologize for the length of this. I am a relative Neophyte to Excel VBA and even more junior with Python. I have run into an issue with an error that occasionally occurs in python using OpenPyXl (just trying that for the first time).
Background: I have a series of python scripts (12) running and querying an API to gather data and populate 12 different, though similar, workbooks. Separately, I have a equal number of Excel instances periodically looking for that data and doing near-real-time analysis and reporting. Another python script looks for key information to be reported from the spreadsheets and will text it to me when identified. The problem seems to occur between the data gathering python scripts and a copy command in the data analysis workbooks.
The way the python data gathering scripts "talk" to the analysis workbooks is via the sheets they build in their workbooks. The existing vba in the analysis workbooks will copy the data workbooks to another directory (so that they can be opened and manipulated without impacting their use by the python scripts) and then interpret and copy the data into the Excel analysis workbook. Although I recently tested a method to read the data directly from those python-created workbooks without opening them, the vba will require some major surgery to convert to that method and is likely not going to happen soon.
TL,DR: There are data workbooks and analysis workbooks. Python builds the data workbooks and the analysis workbooks use VBA to copy the data workbooks to another directory and load specific data from the copied data workbooks. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the data and analysis workbooks.
Based on the above, I believe that the only "interference" that occurs with the data workbooks is when the macro in the analysis workbook copies the workbook. I thought this would be a relatively safe level of interference, but it apparently is not.
The copy is done in VBA with this set of commands (the actual VBA sub is about 500 lines):
fso.CopyFile strFromFilePath, strFilePath, True
where fso is set thusly:
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
and the strFromFilePath and strFilePath both include a fully qualified file name (with their respective paths). This has not generated any errors on the VBA side.
The data is copied about once a minute (though it varies from 40 seconds to about 5 minutes) and seems to work fine from a VBA perspective.
What fails is the python side about 1% of the time (which is probably 12 or fewer times daily. While that seems small, the associated data capture process halts until I notice and restart it. This means anywhere from 1 to all 12 of the data capture processes will fail at some point each day.
Here is what a failure looks like:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
monitor('DLD',1,13,0)
File "<string>", line 794, in monitor
File "C:\Users\abcd\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\lib\site-packages\openpyxl\workbook\workbook.py", line 407, in save
save_workbook(self, filename)
File "C:\Users\abcd\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\lib\site-packages\openpyxl\writer\excel.py", line 291, in save_workbook
archive = ZipFile(filename, 'w', ZIP_DEFLATED, allowZip64=True)
File "C:\Users\abcd\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\lib\zipfile.py", line 1239, in __init__
self.fp = io.open(file, filemode)
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'DLD20210819.xlsx'
and I believe it occurs as a result of the following lines of python code (which comes after a while statement with various if conditions to populate the worksheets). The python script itself is about 200 lines long:
time.sleep(1) # no idea why wb.save sometimes fails; trying a delay
wb.save(FileName)
Notice, I left in one of the attempts to correct this. I have tried waiting as much as 3 seconds with no noticeable difference.
I admit I have no idea how to detect errors thrown by OpenPyXl and am quite unskilled at python error handling, but I had tried this code yesterday:
retries = 1
success = False
while not success and retries < 3:
try:
wb.save
success = True
except PermissionError as saveerror:
print ('>>> Save Error: ',saveerror)
wait = 3
print('=== Waiting %s secs and re-trying... ===' % wait)
#sys.stdout.flush()
time.sleep(wait)
retries += 1
My review of the output tells me that the except code never executed while testing the data capture routine over 3000 times. However, the "save" also never happened so the analysis spreadsheets did not receive any information until later when the python code saved the workbook and closed it.
I also tried adding a wb.close after setting the success variable to true, but got the same results.
I am considering either rewriting the VBA to try to grab the data directly from the unopened data workbooks without first copying them (which actually sounds more dangerous) or using an external synching tool to copy them outside of VBA (which could potentially cause exactly the same problem).
Does anyone have an idea of what may be happening and how to address it? It works nearly all the time but just fails several times a day.
Can someone help me to better understand how to trap the error thrown by OpenPyXl so that I can have it retry rather than just abending?
Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you for reading.
Not sure if this is the best way, but the comment from simpleApp gave me an idea that I may want to use a technique I used elsewhere in the VBA. Since I am new to these tools, perhaps someone can suggest a cleaner approach, but I am going to try using a semaphore file to signal when I am copying the file to alert the python script that it should avoid saving.
In the below I am separating out the directory the prefix and the suffix. The prefix would be different for each of the 12 or more instances I am running and I have not figured out where I want to put these files nor what suffix I should use, so I made them variables.
For example, in the VBA I will have something like this to create a file saying currently available:
Dim strSemaphoreFolder As String
Dim strFilePrefix As String
Dim strFileDeletePath As String
Dim strFileInUseName As String
Dim strFileAvailableName As String
Dim strSemaphoreFileSuffix As String
Dim fso As Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim fileTemp As TextStream
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
strSemaphoreFileSuffix = ".txt"
strSemaphoreFolder = "c:\temp\monitor\"
strFilePrefix = "RJD"
strFileDeletePath = strSemaphoreFolder & strFilePrefix & "*" & strSemaphoreFileSuffix
' Clean up remnants from prior activities
If Len(Dir(strFileDeletePath)) > 0 Then
Kill strFileDeletePath
End If
' files should be gone
' Set the In-use and Available Names
strFileInUseName = strFilePrefix & "InUse" & strSemaphoreFileSuffix
strFileAvailableName = strFilePrefix & "Available" & strSemaphoreFileSuffix
' Create an available file
Set fileTemp = fso.CreateTextFile(strSemaphoreFolder & strFileAvailableName, True)
fileTemp.Close
' available file should be there
Then, when I am about to copy the file, I will briefly change the filename to indicate that the file is in use, perform the potentially problematic copy and then change it back with something like this:
' Temporarily name the semaphore file to "In Use"
Name strSemaphoreFolder & strFileAvailableName As strSemaphoreFolder & strFileInUseName
fso.CopyFile strFromFilePath, strFilePath, True
' After copying the file name it back to "Available"
Name strSemaphoreFolder & strFileInUseName As strSemaphoreFolder & strFileAvailableName
Over in the Python script, before I do the wb.save command, I will insert a check to see whether the file indicates that it is available or in use with something like this:
prefix = 'RJD'
directory = 'c:\\temp\\monitor\\'
suffix = '.txt'
filepathname = directory + prefix + 'Available' + suffix
while not (os.path.isfile(directory + prefix + 'Available' + suffix)):
time.sleep(1)
wb.save
Does this seem like it would work?
I am thinking that it should avoid the failure if I have properly identified it as an attempt to save the file in the Python script while the VBA script is telling the operating system to copy it.
Thoughts?
afterthoughts:
Using the technique I described, I probably need to create the "Available" semaphore file in the Python script and simply assume it will be there in the VBA script since the Python script is collecting the data and may be doing so before the VBA is even started.
A better alternative may be to simply check for the existence of the "In Use" file which will never be there unless the VBA wants it there, like this:
while (os.path.isfile(directory + prefix + 'InUse' + suffix)):
time.sleep(1)
wb.save

How do I send/read data from VBA in Python?

Background
Right now I'm creating a macro to help automate the creation of some graphs in VBA. However, the creation of the graphs requires specific tasks to be done, for example, certain points in a series to be larger depending on previous instances. I would much rather do this data manipulation in python.
Problem
I want to use excel for its user-friendly interface but want to handle all the data manipulation within Python. How can I send data I create in VBA to python. To clarify I'm not trying to read specific cells in the excel sheet.
If I define a string in VBA say...
Dim example_string as String
example_string = "Hello, 1, 2, 3, Bye"
How can I send this information I created within VBA to Python for manipulation?
More Specifics
I have a textbox in excel that is filled by the user, which I read using VBA. I want to send that txt data from VBA to python. The user highlights the desired cells, which are not necessarily the same each time, clicks a button and fills a textbox. I don't want to use range or specific cell selection since this would require the user to specifically enter all the desired data into cells (too time-consuming).
I want to understand the basic procedure of how to send data between VBA and python.
You can do the whole thing in python, it will be more efficient and you can either use excel or sqlite3 as database, go here to read about graphic interfaces with tkinter, use pandas and numpy to process your data.
If you insist in sending data to python, import sys to your python script to read parameters and then run it from vba with the shell() method.
EDIT: You wanted an example, here it is =>
Open a new excel file, create a procedure like this (VBA CODE):
Sub sendToPython()
Dim shell As Object
Dim python As String
Dim callThis As String
Dim passing
Set shell = VBA.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
'/* This is where you installed python (Notice the triple quotes and use your own path *always)*/
python = """C:\Users\yourUserName\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\python.exe"""
'/* This is the data you'll be passing to python script*/
passing = "The*eye*of*the*tiger"
callThis = "C:\Users\yourUserName\desktop\yourScriptName.py " & passing & ""
shell.Run python & callThis
End Sub
The idea is to create some kind of a parser in python, this is my silly example (PYTHON CODE):
import sys
f = open("log.txt", "w")
arg = (sys.argv[1]).split("*")
s = " "
arg = s.join(arg)
print("This is the parameter i've entered: " + arg, file=f)
Notice how i used sys to read a parameter and i exported to actually see some results because otherwise you'll just see a black screen popping up for like a millisecond.
I also found this article, but it requires you to wrap the python script in a class and i don't know if that works for you

Start python script from excel with input

I have a Python script (gui.py - a calculation program, written by somebody else). I try to run this from excel with input data from the same excel file. It works fine when I start the script as:
objShell.Run PythonExe & PythonScript3
In the python script I used the following to get f.ex data from H5 cell, works also fine:
import openpyxl
wb = openpyxl.load_workbook("01.xlsm")
ws = wb.active
mastNumber = ws['H5']
But I don't want to edit a lot in gui.py (have just simple changes) so I planned to use a 2nd script (caller.py) which gets the data from Excel, then I import this to gui.py and there I just use the variable from caller.py. It works also as long as I start gui.py directly. When I start it from Excel I get an error msg.
error msg
So as long as the flow is not Excel -> gui-py -> which imports caller to get data from same Excel file -everything works fine.
I am open to any solution for this problem or a completely new approach if there is better for somebody with limited programming skills.
Looking at the error, can you try putting complete path of the excel file at line wb = openpyxl.load_workbook("01.xlsm") instead of just 01.xlsm.

xlwings doesn't write data in file.xlsm when running through excel

I am trying to use xlwings for simple consolidation from several xls files.
For this, I have a all_files.xlsm file that contains a button with macros assigned to it. The macros looks like:
Sub check_data()
RunPython ("import python_code; python_code.consolidation()")
End Sub
In same folder I have a file python_code.py with function "consolidation" inside.
I also use Workbook.set_mock_caller() in order to have an opportunity to run a code through python interface. It looks like:
def consolidation(file_path):
*** smth to get the data I need ***
...
*** after I got data ***
Range('A1').table.clear_contents() #string1
Range('A1').value = data #string2
def main():
consolidation(file_path)
if __name__ == '__main__':
xl.Workbook.set_mock_caller(path_to_file)
main()
The problem is that when I am running the script through the button in excel file last two strings (string1 and string2) - Range('A1').table.clear_contents() and Range('A1').value = data doesn't work. Although the rest of the code works fine (however, it contains xlwing also). Moreover, if I run the script through the python interface using set mock caller, it works just fine, including string1 and string2 (marked in the code).
Any help and advices are really appreciated!
I found decision for my problem. For using xlwings in python you should import xlwings.bas in your excel file (see manual for xlwings). It turns out, that I imported it for this macros before I've updated xlwings. So I deleted this file and imported a new one. Everything works fine now.

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