Overview

COM application development programmers use COM tools to encapsulate a function into an object and make that object callable by other, client, applications. The server that hosts the object executes the function. Client application calls to the object are actually made to the object's interface. If an object's interface identifier is registered on multiple client machines, multiple client applications can access the function simultaneously.

The COM programmer typically uses the Interface Definition Language (IDL) to create an IDL file that defines the COM object interface (that is, the methods and parameters, interface data types, structure members, and array sizes). The Microsoft IDL compiler (MIDL) reads those definitions and generates code suitable for input to a C or C++ compiler, which generates proxies, stubs, or type libraries.

COM on Tru64 UNIX implements this same basic application development environment. The COM ported to Tru64 UNIX supports client applications written in the standard application languages of C, C++, Java, and Visual Basic. It also supports your use of C and C++ to create COM server applications on Tru64 UNIX.

As described earlier, the basic steps in compiling a COM application on Tru64 UNIX include:

• Defining object interfaces with IDL and creating the registration file for that interface.
• Using MIDL to process the IDL file into C or C++ compatible modules.
• For a proxy/stub library, creating a module definition file with the COM for Tru64 UNIX makedef utility.
• Using the C++ compiler to compile and link MIDL output (client and server source files,...