As said in response to dasgar, these are good points. I am not the original author, but it seemed reasonable to include code provided by the authors of Win32::OLE. It's good to point out to future viewers the possible pitfalls of using such code, including the possibility of "hijacking" an existing Excel instance doing other things. As I said, my mental model of Win32::OLE automation has always been a dedicated single instance of Excel running without intervention (or possibility of intervention, in the case of a Server). If I were to do simple macro type automation, then I'd record it within Excel or use the existing VBA and save myself the pain of OLE.

As for this specific example, if you had an open file already loaded in the Excel instance, what would happen is that you'd get a new sheet added, there'd be data in that, and the result would be saved in test.xls. So if you had a complex workbook already open, those changes could be brought back. It's a fair point, though, you wouldn't want to have any open instances before running such a script.