IDLcomIDispatch

Superclasses | Subclasses | Creation | Methods | Version History

The IDLcomIDispatch object class creates an IDL object that encapsulates a COM object. IDL provides data type and other translation services, allowing IDL programs to access the COM object's methods and properties using standard IDL syntax.

Note
IDL provides COM support on Microsoft Windows platforms only.

Note
COM objects encapsulated by IDLcomIDispatch objects must implement an IDispatch interface.

Note
You should be aware that COM, like C, stores array data in row-major format. IDL stores array data in column-major format. See Columns, Rows, and Array Majority (Application Programming) for a detailed discussion of this issue and its implications for IDL application design.

For detailed information on using the IDLcomIDispatch object, see Using COM Objects in IDL (IDL Connectivity Bridges).

Superclasses

None

Subclasses

When a COM object is instantiated, IDL creates a dynamic subclass of the IDLcomIDispatch class. The dynamic subclass is used to provide a unique name for each component type, based on the COM class or program identifier. See IDLcomIDispatch Object Naming Scheme for details.

ActiveX controls are instantiated within IDL as a special subclass of the IDLcomIDispatch class named IDLcomActiveX.

Creation

See IDLcomIDispatch::Init

Properties

Objects of this class have the following properties. See IDLcomIDispatch Properties for details on individual properties.

In addition, objects of this class inherit the properties of all superclasses of this class.

Methods

In addition to these methods, you can call the underlying COM object's methods directly. See Method Calls on IDLcomIDispatch Objects for details.

Note
The IDL object system uses method names to identify and call object lifecycle methods (Init and Cleanup). If the COM object underlying an IDLcomIDispatch object implements Init or Cleanup methods, they will be overridden by IDL's lifecycle methods — the COM object's methods will be inaccessible from IDL. Similarly, IDL implements the GetProperty and SetProperty methods for the IDLcomIDispatch object, so any methods of the underlying COM object that use these names will be inaccessible from IDL.

Version History