COM Programming By Example

If there was ever a subject that lent itself to examples, COM is it! None of the APIs, configuration files, classes, wizards, or helper applications of COM can stand alone 3/4 you need an example of how to use them together in order to know how to do anything. This book will do for COM what the author's recent MFC books have done to teach that technology. You get a quick but thorough overview of COM technology, and dozens of real-life examples that can be used to accomplish virtually all of the requirements of a COM project.

COM Basics are addressed succinctly in the first three chapters. You will learn how to:

• Use the COM API to create a COM object.
• Prepare your DLL or EXE so the COM API can access the class objects inside.
• Exchange data with your COM objects by passing arguments in any function call, or implementing automatic serialization and reconstruction of your data through a network port.
• Address other details of COM implementation including deriving the functionality of another COM object in your own, and security matters.
• Implement COM+ and Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) to permit massive scaling.

• Create and access COM objects using an entire range of COM techniques including C++, MFC, ATL, Visual Basic, and Visual J++.
• Use COM to automatically send data between your client and the COM server.
• Write a COM+ object that will engage the event server provided by Windows 2000.
• Use Microsoft's the Active Data Objects (ADO) library to access a database.

Table of contents

Introduction

Section 1: COM Basics

Chapter 1: COM Objects

Chapter 2: COM Communication

Chapter 3: Other COM Issues

Chapter 4: COM+

Section 2: COM Examples

Chapter 5: Creating and Accessing COm Objects

Chapter 6: Writing COM Servers with MFC

Chapter 7: Writing COM Servers with ATL

Chapter 8: Writing COM Servers with VB and VJ++

Chapter 9: COM Communications

Chapter 10: COM+ Examples

Chapter 11: Accessing Database Objects

Chapter 12: Potpourri

Index