Re: Is there *any* real documentation to PyWin32?

Benoit wrote:
I understand that the Win32 has been said to be itself poorly
documented, so perhaps that the documentation that comes with the
modules is of similar quality is no coincidence. Maybe I'm still too
young in my programming to grasp the good of that documentation, but
for myself, it tells me next to nothing. Could anyone point me to
anything which may exist that does a better job of explaining the
extensions' use? I tried to take a look @ Microsoft's documentation,
but it was confusing.

I think the thing is that, for most of the modules, they're simply
answering the question "How do I do <x> in Python?" where <x> is the
answer to the question "How do I do <y> in Windows?". For example:
"How do I send something to a printer in Windows?". If you Google
around a bit with that, you'll end up with things like OpenPrinter,
StartDocPrinter and so on. With a Vb/Delphi/C++ example in hand,
the pywin32 extensions usually make it possible to translate pretty
much directly into Python.

Obviously, the modules are more-or-less hand-coded/generated so
only whatever someone's[*] seen fit to include are included (and
development continues so new things do turn up). The more general
solution is ctypes, standard with Py2.5+, available as an extension
before that. That's even lower level, but does mean that if something
isn't exposed via pywin32 then you can do-it-yourself.

All this isn't really answering your question but is at least
explaining a bit why "explaining the extensions' use" is perhaps
a trivial task - they're there to expose the Microsoft API in
a slightly more Pythonic layer.

There are a few web pages around with a few hints and recipes, my
own included:

http://timgolden.me.uk/python/win32_how_do_i.html

Ultimately, though, you're at the mercy of the MS API unless
someone's already done the legwork of providing a more Pythonic
wrapper to something.

TJG

[*] And "someone" here means the selfless small team, mostly consisting
of Mark Hammond and Roger Upole, who've contributed over the years.
.

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