convert COM obj to integer

[Bell, Kevin]

I'm pulling a range of cells from Excel into a list and the data in
Excel is a number or possibly some text like an asterisk. Each member
of the list is a com object (I think) and I'm converting them to
integers (or to None if not numberic) but my method seems very silly.
Is this the best way to go about it?

It does exactly what it should, but it seems like a lot of extra BS to
convert my object to a string to a float to a rounded integer! Don't
laugh. I'm new at this!
THE SCRIPT:----------------------------------

import win32com.client
xlApp = win32com.client .Dispatch("Exce l.Application")
f = r"C:\py\Traffic Volumes\xlTestD ocs\3125113A.xl s"
xlApp.Visible = 0
xlApp.Workbooks .Open(f)
list = xlApp.ActiveWor kbook.ActiveShe et.Range("Q13:Q 36")

print list
print "\n"
def comObjToInteger (myObj):
try:
s = str(myObj)
fl = float(s)
integer = int(round(fl))
return integer
except:
return None
for i in list:
print comObjToInteger (i)
xlApp.ActiveWor kbook.Close(Sav eChanges=0)
xlApp.Quit()

del xlApp #clean up
----------------------------------------------

THE RESULT:--------------------

the list:

((4.79999999999 99998,), (u'*',), (2.0,), (1.600000000000 0001,),
(5.599999999999 9996,), (19.39999999999 9999,), (25.0,),
(38.79999999999 9997,), (32.79999999999 9997,), (21.0,), (24.0,),
(17.39999999999 9999,), (22.80000000000 0001,), (22.60000000000 0001,),
(33.79999999999 9997,), (35.39999999999 9999,), (29.19999999999 9999,),
(35.39999999999 9999,), (32.20000000000 0003,), (26.0,),
(24.39999999999 9999,), (22.80000000000 0001,), (14.0,), (11.6,))

my converted values:
5
None
2
2
6
19
25
39
33
21
24
17
23
23
34
35
29
35
32
26
24
23
14
12
----------------------------------

[Steve M]

I don't know exactly what a COM object is, but those aren't them. The
win32com package takes care of converting everything to Python types.
The excel call returns a tuple of tuples. That is, the outer tuple is
the sequence of rows, and each such row is itself a tuple with one
member per column requested. Since you only request one column, it is a
one-item-long tuple, also called a 1-tuple. That is demonstrated by the
result of print'ing the list.

By the way, you shouldn't use 'list' as a name because it is also the
name of a built-in function. And it isn't a list anyway, it's a tuple.

Now, each number is in fact already a primitive Python object of type
float. (The asterisk is a unicode string.) So you want to convert the
floats into integers, and it looks like you want to round rather than
truncate.
----
table = xlApp.ActiveWor kbook.ActiveShe et.Range("Q13:Q 36")

converted_value s = []

for row in table:
value = row[0] #get the first (and only) item in the tuple
try:
value = round(value)
except TypeError: #value is not a float
value = None
else:
value = int(value) #turn the float into an int
converted_value s.append(value)
print converted_value s
----

By the way, if you wonder how I knew to catch the TypeError, I just
fired up the interactive Python interpreter, and typed this: round(u'*')