Understanding COM/ActiveX

Jeff Paulter Staff Software Engineer Thurs Aug 17 10:15-11:30 a.m., 1:45-3:00 p.m. Ash (10A)
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Outline
What is ActiveX? Why use COM/ActiveX What is COM? What are ActiveX/COM

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Servers Objects Interfaces More

What is ActiveX all about?

Demonstrations
Document objects Automation Controls Containers

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What is ActiveX?
The name for technologies built on top of COM Examples include:
Document objects ActiveX controls Automation OLE for process control (OPC)

Grew out of OLE

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Motivation for COM/ActiveX

Component software development
Reuse of binary software components Create and use components from various languages Update components without recompiling or breaking existing clients

Object-based model Distributed software Location transparency

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What About DLLs?

Calling conventions can vary DLLs are not object based (Flat API) Versioning can be difficult Memory management concerns Linkage issues

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What is COM?
Component object model Binary and network standard Run-time system
Calls across network Location transparency Security

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COM Servers
Can be DLLs or EXEs Provide objects for clients
A single server can provide implementations for more than one object The set of objects that a server provides and the relationships between them is referred to as an object hierarchy

Are activated by the COM run-time services

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Object Hierarchy
Top Level Objects (Creatable)

Lower Level Objects (Non-Creatable)

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COM Objects
Clients view objects as black boxes Clients communicate with objects only through interfaces Objects can handle more than one interface
Interface1 Interface2 Interface3
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Object

COM Interfaces
Sets of related methods Immutable contracts Implementations not described
NO member data (functions only)

COM defines a standard for in-memory layout of interfaces

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Interface Benefits
Compiler neutral Language neutral Object implementations can change without affecting clients
Clients never need to be recompiled

Versioning

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Sample Interfaces
IAnimal
Eat Sleep Walk

IGuard
SoundAlarm AttackBadGuy

IDog : IAnimal
Bark Fetch ChaseCat

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Sample Object

IAnimal

Guard Dog Object

IDog
IGuard

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IUnknown Interface
Every COM interface inherits from IUnknown IUnknown includes functionality needed by every object
Provides a mechanism for clients to obtain one interface from another interface Provides object lifetime manangement

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IUnknown Interface
Mechanism to get from one interface on an object to another interface on the object
HRESULT QueryInterface (REFIID riid, void **ppvObject);

Mechanism to manage object lifetimes

Clients do not delete COM objects directly COM objects are responsible for deleting themselves COM objects are reference counted ULONG AddRef ( ); ULONG Release ( );
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Registration of Servers
Servers are registered with the system
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT CLSID
{E312522E-A7B7-11D1-A52E-0000F8751BA7} Default = Guard Dog Object InprocServer32 = "D:\Examples\AnimalLib\AnimalLib.dll"

AnimalLib.GuardDog
CLSID
Default = {E312522E-A7B7-11D1-A52E0000F8751BA7} ni.com

Event Interfaces
Interface provides communication from the server back to the client Server defines an interface that it calls to notify the client that an event occurred Client supplies server with a pointer to the interface Clients code is executed when the server calls methods in the event interface
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Example Event Interface

IDogEvents
AmHungry WantAttention NeedToGoOutside

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IDispatch Interface
Automation servers must handle IDispatch ActiveX controls must handle IDispatch IDispatch gives scripting clients access to COM objects
Microsoft Office Internet Explorer Old versions of Visual Basic

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IDispatch Interface
IDispatch::Invoke provides access to an entire interface through a single function Clients use the Invoke function to call all methods
Specify method by method ID Pass parameters in a single large structure

Invoke understands only Automation types

Yes: int, double, enum, boolean, structures Yes: BSTR, SafeArray, Variant No: unions, C style arrays, C style strings

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COM/ActiveX Programming
Many environments provide some tools to make writing COM servers and clients easier
Wrappers for accessing COM servers Wizards to create skeleton servers or controls Tools to add interfaces, methods, properties Free implementations of some standard interfaces

Measurement Studio
Visual Basic, Visual C++, LabWindows/CVI

LabVIEW
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ActiveX and NI Products

ActiveX controls
Measurement Studio

Containers
LabVIEW, BridgeVIEW

Automation servers
LabVIEW, Measurement Studio, HiQ, DataSocket

Clients
LabVIEW, BridgeVIEW, Measurement Studio, TestStand

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COM/ActiveX Resources
Essential COM
Don Box (Addison-Wesley, 1998)

Inside COM
Dale Rogerson (Microsoft Press, 1997)

Various MSDN Articles NI Product Examples

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