[fpc-devel] COM issues

[Matthias Hryniszak]

Hi,

I've got a question about COM programming in FPC. In the docs 
(http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refsu20.html) I've found:

Variants and interfaces
Remark: Dispatch interface support for variants is currently broken in the 
compiler.

Is it still true? Why when I try to compile this simple application

program Test;

{$MODE DELPHI}

uses
  ActiveX, ComObj;

var
  COM: Variant;

begin
  CoInitialize(nil);
  COM := CreateOleObject('Shell.Application');
  COM.MinimizeAll;
  CoUninitialize;
end.


The compiler tells me:

Free Pascal Compiler version 1.9.9 [2005/04/15] for i386
Copyright (c) 1993-2005 by Florian Klaempfl
test.pp(14,7) Error: Illegal expression
test.pp(14,7) Fatal: Syntax error, ";" expected but "identifier MINIMIZEALL" 
found
Error: X:\FPC\Bin\i386-win32\ppc386.exe returned an error exitcode (normal 
if you did not specifiy a source file to be compiled)

What's going on? Anybody can help? do I have to compile the compiler with 
some extra settings to make Variants work as late-binding variables? I've 
got a little dead-line here and I have to make a decition if I take the 
delphi compiler or fpc and if I don't get this to work I'll have to take 
delphi and that's something I really don't want. Huston, please advice!

Regards,

Matthias (matthias at hryniszak.de)