Controlling gnumeric from Python

[Alexey Goldin <alexey goldin gmail com>]

Ok, this is a trick question, I guess.  I am trying to use gnumeric to
read Excel file (no, Basic macros, gnumeric reads it Ok) and get data
into Python. For some reason I was sure this is trivial to do.
However, after spending the whole day googling and looking through
documentation I found only one 5 year old example using old naming
scheme with GOADID and a note that in neares future interface is
likely to change.

I'd like to do something like this:

import bonobo
bonobo.activate()
obj = bonobo.get_object("OAFIID:GNOME:Gnumeric:WorkbookFactory:1.0",
"What do I write here?")
v=obj.get_cel_value(....)

So, is anyone using gnumeric in such a way? Is it possible?  If not,
why not? Is there a modern example?

Probably grokking all the CORBA and Bonobo documentation is a good
idea but, alas, it would take many months :-)

Thanks!