how to create a ActiveXObject with node.js?

Question

I'm a totally newbie in node.js. I'm trying to implement a browser performance tool using node.js, so I have the following piece of code:

 for(var j=0; j < 14; j++) {
        // Create a new instance of HttpWatch in Firefox
        var control = new ActiveXObject('HttpWatch.Controller');
        var plugin = control.Firefox.New();
        // Start Recording HTTP traffic
        plugin.Log.EnableFilter(false);
        // Clear Cache and cookier before each test
        plugin.ClearCache();
        plugin.ClearAllCookies();   
        plugin.ClearSessionCookies();
        plugin.Record();
        // Goto to the URL and wait for the page to be loaded
        plugin.GotoURL(url);
        control.Wait(plugin, -1);
        // Stop recording HTTP
        plugin.Stop();
        if ( plugin.Log.Pages.Count != 0 )
        {           
           // Display summary statistics for page
           var summary = plugin.Log.Pages(0).Entries.Summary;
           //WScript.Echo( "Iteration number " + j + "for" + url + "   Total time to load page in (secs): " + summary.Time);
           cache[i].value.push(summary.Time);
        }
        // Close down Firefox
        plugin.CloseBrowser();
      }

I'm using httpwatch to measure the performance values, which are going to be stored in a MySQL database. However, when I run:

node test.js

I get:

C:\xampp\htdocs\test\browser-perf>node test.js

C:\xampp\htdocs\test\browser-perf\test.js:37
                var control = new ActiveXObject('HttpWatch.Controller');
                                  ^
ReferenceError: ActiveXObject is not defined
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\xampp\htdocs\test\browser-perf\test.
js:37:21)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
    at startup (node.js:119:16)
    at node.js:901:3

How can I create a similar object as ActiveXObject in node.js and obtain the same desired results?

From what I'm reading I am not sure if you really understood what node.js and who it works. Have you seen this question: http://stackoverflow.com/q/1884724/45786 — TheHippo, May 06 '13 at 23:56

justyy · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-20T20:46:25.817

12

https://npmjs.org/package/win32ole

try the win32ole package, to install, open the node.js cmd, and type the following to install the package.

npm install win32ole

Example usage:

var win32ole = require('win32ole');
var xl = win32ole.client.Dispatch('Excel.Application');
xl.Visible = true;

Please also see this post: Using COM object in NodeJS

edited Dec 20 '16 at 20:46

answered Jul 31 '13 at 03:46

justyy

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 06 '13 at 22:37

1

I'm not a node.js user, so I can't comment on node.js specifically, but ActiveXObject is a feature of the Microsoft Active Scripting JScript engine, as well as the new Chakra engine in IE9, so it is not available in other platforms because it's very Windows-specific.

answered May 06 '13 at 22:37

Dai

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true, but I'm trying to run it from a windows terminal – cybertextron May 06 '13 at 22:38
1

Node.js runs in V8; It doesn't matter what OS you're running it in, you're still not going to have access to another engine's features. – Tim Gautier May 07 '13 at 14:19

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '13 at 14:37

1

As in https://github.com/mynetx/codebird-js/issues/13, you can emulate it using xhr2: https://npmjs.org/package/xhr2.

npm install xhr2

I'm not sure if that will work for your browser performance tool but at least for someone else googling on the ActiveXObject error it should work.

answered Jun 25 '13 at 14:37

isomorphismes

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That would only work with certain progids, such as the one for XHR. – Timothy Meade Jun 25 '13 at 22:42

how to create a ActiveXObject with node.js?

3 Answers3