Automation

[Lost User]

What is the equivalent of COM automation in a .NET app, similar to what MS Word does, ie, hookup to an existing instance of the app? When functionality is exposed from a .NET app, are there methods for a non-.NET app (C++ or VB) access it? My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers

[WizardOfPeyton]

First Question: Unless the author of the .NET app has added support for Automation it will not have an automation model. If the application does have an automation model you would likely have to get the doc's from the authoring company. Second Question: I don't know the answer to this. I would assume there has to be some way.

[Lost User]

My question rephrased: I want to add an automation interface to my .NET app. How do I do it? How does .NET and non-.NET apps access this interface? Links to any articles would be most welcome. Thomas My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers

[Stephane Rodriguez]

tlbexp.exe doc link here[^]. In short, the public types exposed by your assembly are automatically reexposed as a standard tlb to play with. (regasm.exe both exports a type library and registers it, in one call).

[Kannan Kalyanaraman]

Hi Thomas, Thomas George wrote: When functionality is exposed from a .NET app, are there methods for a non-.NET app (C++ or VB) access it? This is very much possible. .net classes can be exposed as Components. Once you have the assembly(dll) written, you need to make sure a couple of things. There are public methods in your class, only these methods are visible to COM. You will have to use a tool called regasm to register the dll with the registry so that the COM clients can know about your component. Have a look at this thread http://www.codeproject.com/script/comments/forums.asp?msg=360476&forumid=1649#xx360476xx[^] Regards Kannan