Passing existing COM server to parallel cluster

Hi,

I'm wondering whether an existing COM server, invoked by something like

Excel=actxserver('excel.application');

can be passed to a local parallel cluster as an argument of a Matlab function via the createtask command, say as in

cluster=parcluster;
job=createJob(cluster);
createTask(job,@genericFunction,1,{arg1,arg2,Excel});
submit(job)
wait(job)
results=fetchOutputs(job);

I tried this, and noticed that (in Win Task Manager) the slave opens up another COM server -- which is not what I'm looking for.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Sergio

Answer 1

[Edric Ellis]

You need to use actxGetRunningServer on the workers rather than passing the server object directly, like so:

>> e = actxserver('Excel.application')
 e =
   COM.Excel_application
>> e.Hwnd
ans =
      199964
>> c = parcluster('local');
>> j = batch(c, 'myE = actxGetRunningServer(''Excel.appliction''); myE.Hwnd'); 
>> wait(j); 
>> diary(j)
--- Start Diary ---
ans =
      199964
--- End Diary ---