ActiveX variant to LabVIEW variant

Question

Hi Ppl,
I'm reading ActiveX data from an application(TestStand) in LabVIEW. The data I get is of the type ActiveX Variant. When I use variant to data node I'm able to convert the data to the corresponding data type. Howevere in my application the data type varies dynamically and I cannot use the variant to data node.
I will have to flatten it to string. But the flatten to string node does not work with ActiveX variants. It only works with LabVIEW variant types. So is there any way that i could convert ActiveX variant types to LabVIEW variant. I tried the to variant node too. I too does not convert it as expected.
Thanks,
Sathish
Here is how both the variant types differ
Activex variant (boolean):
'': OLE Variant 
Variant Type -> VT_BOOLValue -> FALSE
LabVIEW variant(boolean):
'Boolean': boolean (TRUE or FALSE) 
FALSE

Answer 1

Hi lordsathish,
Unfortunately, there is no way in LabVIEW to access type data for OLE/ActiveX variant data.  However, you can obtain information about the datatype of a TestStand PropertyObject using the ValueType method:
myObject.Type.ValueType
This will return the data type (see the ValueType help entry for more details).  you can then use the specific type methods (getValBoolean, etc) to extract data.  In the case that you have an array, you can use the ArrayDimensions and ElementType to extract the data from the array.  In the case of a container, the contained items will be considered propertyObjects, so you can use the getNumSubProperties and getPropertyObject methods to access the contained items.
Refer to the PropertyObjectType reference help for details on these methods
I hope this clarifies!
Al B.
Staff Software Engineer - TestStand
CTA/CLD