COMOBJ - COM Objects in a DLL


SUMMARY
=======

The COMOBJ DLL offers several car-related COM object classes. Because
COMOBJ.DLL supports no object handlers, class factories, full in-process
servers, or marshshaling, it is not a full-blown COM Server. Rather, it is
a primitive precursor to an COM in-process server.

This DLL exposes the following COM objects: COCar, COUtilityCar, and
COCruiseCar. Appropriate create functions are exported from this DLL:
CreateCar, CreateUtilityCar, and CreateCruiseCar.

In this tutorial, COMOBJ works with the COMUSER code sample to show how an
EXE client (COMUSER.EXE) calls COM object creation services and manipulates
the COM objects that are created.

For functional descriptions and a tutorial code tour of COMOBJ, see the
Code Tour section in COMOBJ.HTM. For details on setting up the
programmatic usage of COMOBJ, see the Usage section in COMOBJ.HTM. To read
COMOBJ.HTM, run TUTORIAL.EXE in the main tutorial directory and click the
COMOBJ lesson in the table of lessons. You can also achieve the same thing
by clicking the COMOBJ.HTM file after locating the main tutorial directory
in the Windows Explorer. See also COMUSER.HTM in the main tutorial
directory for more details on the COMUSER client application and how it
works with COMOBJ.DLL itself. You must build COMOBJ.DLL before building
COMUSER. The makefile for COMOBJ copies the necessary COMOBJ.H,
COMOBJ.LIB, and COMOBJ.DLL files to the appropriate sibling directories
once the files are built. The .H goes to \INC, the .LIB goes to \LIB, and
the .DLL goes to \COMUSER.

In general, to set up your system to build and test the code samples in
this ActiveX Tutorial series, see TUTORIAL.HTM for details. The supplied
makefile is Microsoft NMAKE-compatible. To create a debug build, issue the
NMAKE command at the command prompt.

Usage
-----

COMOBJ is a DLL that you can access from .EXE modules either by performing
an explicit LoadLibrary call or implicitly loading the DLL by linking to its
associated import library (.LIB) file. In either case, you need to include
COMOBJ.H to declare the functions that are defined as exported in the COMOBJ
DLL. In this lesson, a representative COMUSER.EXE application is provided
to illustrate the programmatic use of COMOBJ.DLL. COMUSER is built in the
COMUSER lesson (in sibling directory COMUSER). See below for more details.


FILES
=====

Files       Description

COMOBJ.TXT  This file.
MAKEFILE    The generic makefile for building the COMOBJ.DLL code sample.
COMOBJ.H    The include file for declaring as imported or defining as
            exported the service functions in COMOBJ.DLL.
COMOBJ.CPP  The main implementation file for COMOBJ.DLL. Has DllMain
            and the COM Object creation functions.
CAR.H       The include file for the COCar COM object class.
CAR.CPP     The implementation file for the COCar COM object class.
UTILCAR.H   The include file for the COUtilityCar COM object class.
UTILCAR.CPP The implementation file for the COUtilityCar COM object class.
CRUCAR.H    The include file for the COCruiseCar COM object class.
CRUCAR.CPP  The implementation file for the COCruiseCar COM object class.
COMOBJI.H   The include file for the internal class declarations and
            resource identifier definitions for resources stored inside
            the COMOBJ.DLL.
COMOBJ.RC   The DLL resource definition file.
COMOBJ.ICO  The icon resource.