Hi,

I would like to use the ReportLab toolkit ( http://www.*-*-*.com/ )
to produce PDF documents using PerlScript (via WSH). However, this
library is written for Python. I would like to use WSC (and
ActivePython) to expose the ReportLab library to Perl so that we can
take advantage of its features. Sample code follows :

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<component>
        <?component error="true" debug="true"?>

        <registration
                description="ColourTest"
                progid="ColourTest.WSC"
                version="1.00"
                classid="{8991a7a1-25e6-4d7b-9a96-45797114fc3d}"
        >
        </registration>

        <public>
                <method name="Canvas"/>
                <method name="GetAllNamedColors"/>
        </public>

        <script language="Python">
                <![CDATA[
import reportlab.pdfgen.canvas
from reportlab.lib import colors
from reportlab.lib.units import inch

def Canvas( WScript, Filename ):
        WScript.Echo( "Filename : '" + Filename + "'" )
        Value = reportlab.pdfgen.canvas.Canvas( Filename )
        Value.setFont('Times-BoldItalic', 20)
        return Value

def GetAllNamedColors():
        return reportlab.lib.colors.getAllNamedColors()
        ]]>
        </script>
</component>

The problem is, when I use the 'Canvas' method, an undefined value is
returned to my PerlScript. But in the above function, the setFont
function works. Can anybody tell me why this is so?

Looks like ColourTest.Canvas method creates
reportlab.pdfgen.canvas.Canvas object and it is scoped to go out of
existence.

<snip>

Being a newbie to Python, how would I keep the object within scope.
Normally under C++ I'd dynamically allocate the object and return a
pointer. Under Perl, you can just return the object without worrying
about scope. How is it done in Python?

Regards,

Camel

#!perl
#script to demo variable scope in the same perl file
#
use strict;
$something = 'nothing';
{my $something = &GimmeSomething ();}
print "When something is $something\n";
#
#When something is nothing

sub GimmeSomething {
  return 'something';

<snip>

<snip>

The best place to ask for help on this would be python newsgroup
(comp.lang.python).

Branimir