newbie questions

[Mike25de]

Hi guys!

First of all ... congrats for the great job you are doing with autoit. Is amazing (i am a web developer/sys admin and i find this tool awesome)

But being a newbie i have some questions: (stupid ones)

#include <array.au3> -> where the heck is that array.au3? how does autoit know how to embed it?

I saw on the help directory that there are some excel udfs(i do not yet know what an udf is exactly = a class ?)

How can i start using that? just a simple example on how to read/write xls. - Excel must be installed on my machine in order to use this feature?

Again congrats to everyone that is sharing.. i spend 2-3 days only reading posts... and i am impressed.

Thanks

[JohnOne]

UDF = User defined Function.

UDFs that come with autoit3 are in the include folder in your autoit3 install folder.

[Melba23]

IAHIM,

In the order you asked....

Array.au3 is an include file which is part of the normal AutoIt install - you should find it (along with a lot of others!) in "C:\Program Files\AutoIt3\Include". AutoIt knows how to install it because of the #include directive - it knows where its includes are and goes looking for them. You can add your own folder to the search if you wish - either by adding a registry key (see the Help file page on #include for details) or by using "SciTE Config" (if you have the full version of SciTE4AutoIt3 which you can download here and which is well worth it ).

An include file is nothing more than a section of code inserted in your script at the point of the #include directive. So if you always wanted to start your scripts with:

; IAHIM wrote this - ask him before modifying anything!

you could save that as a file and then use #include to put it in place. That is, of course, a trivial example - most of the include files are large chunks of code containing UDFs to expand the functionality of AutoIt.

A UDF is a "User Defined Function" - that is some AutoIt code which gives added functionality to the language. All the built-in functions are coded in the main AutoIt exectutable, but many people over the years have developed the UDFs you found in the Include folder. These are the ones considered good enough to be included with AutoIt - the Examples section of the forum holds many, many others. Some of these are used every day by many of us - but the AutoIt developers are understandably strict on limiting the number actually installed with AutoIt.

Excel.au3 is a series of functions coded in AutoIt to help with automating Excel - and yes you do need Excel to make it work! If you want to use it, add the line #include <Excel.au3> at the top of your script and then the functions will be available for you to use.

I hope this helps.

M23

[Mike25de]

IAHIM,

In the order you asked....

Array.au3 is an include file which is part of the normal AutoIt install - you should find it (along with a lot of others!) in "C:\Program Files\AutoIt3\Include". AutoIt knows how to install it because of the #include directive - it knows where its includes are and goes looking for them. You can add your own folder to the search if you wish - either by adding a registry key (see the Help file page on #include for details) or by using "SciTE Config" (if you have the full version of SciTE4AutoIt3 which you can download here and which is well worth it ).

An include file is nothing more than a section of code inserted in your script at the point of the #include directive. So if you always wanted to start your scripts with:

; IAHIM wrote this - ask him before modifying anything!

you could save that as a file and then use #include to put it in place. That is, of course, a trivial example - most of the include files are large chunks of code containing UDFs to expand the functionality of AutoIt.

A UDF is a "User Defined Function" - that is some AutoIt code which gives added functionality to the language. All the built-in functions are coded in the main AutoIt exectutable, but many people over the years have developed the UDFs you found in the Include folder. These are the ones considered good enough to be included with AutoIt - the Examples section of the forum holds many, many others. Some of these are used every day by many of us - but the AutoIt developers are understandably strict on limiting the number actually installed with AutoIt.

Excel.au3 is a series of functions coded in AutoIt to help with automating Excel - and yes you do need Excel to make it work! If you want to use it, add the line #include <Excel.au3> at the top of your script and then the functions will be available for you to use.

I hope this helps.

M23

Thanks a looooot for the tips. Now my question is... why isn't there a wiki supported by the best/old developers with a list of function they use/developed over the years. I know there is a section of examples ... but browsing through the forum i find out a lot more examples than in the Example section. For a beginner(and why not for a developer) could be a lot easier to have this database with UDFs and some explanation/example/usage. I am newbie here, but i have some experience in web development and i know sometimes how nice is when you can find the exact thing in the exact place.

KEEP up the good work!

[Melba23]

IAHIM,

The UDFs that came with AutoIt are fully described, with examples, in the Help file - these are the only officially supported UDFs. The UDFs in the Examples section are usually maintained by the author, although some get taken over or become group efforts.

There is already a Wiki - look at the title bar on the page. Some of us are at the moment trying to add things to improve it. But the forum Search engine is your best friend - although far too many here do not use it (or do not know how!).

M23

P.S. When you reply please use the "Add Reply" button at the top and bottom of the page rather then the "Reply" button in the post itself. That way you do not get the contents of the previous post quoted in your reply and the whole thread becomes easier to read.