Bruce Armstrong TeamSybase

Techniques  PowerBuilder 11 and beyond only Referencing.Net assemblies directly within Conditional Code blocks in PowerScript  Any version of PowerBuilder.Net Interop via COM Callable Wrappers

Referencing.Net Assemblies  Currently only non-visual assemblies Visual assemblies is a release milestone for PowerBuilder 12  Conditional Code blocks AutoScript is not supported (errors are reported at compile time) Syntax is neither PowerScript or C# but a mix of them (PowerScript#)

.Net Interop  Runtime Callable Wrapper  COM Callable Wrapper

Allows a.Net application to use a Win32 COM object Runtime Callable Wrapper COM Object Runtime Callable Wrapper.Net Application

Allows a Win32 application to use a.Net object via COM COM Callable Wrapper.Net Object COM Callable Wrapper Win32 Application

COM Callable Wrapper  Assembly has to be COM-Visible Assembly can be marked such at compile time FxCop can be used to determine if marked ILSASM/ILASM can be used (in some cases) to change the marking

COM Callable Wrapper  Marking the Assembly COM-Visible in Visual Studio

Using FxCop  Examining the COM-Visible attribute using Microsoft’s FxCop

ILDASM  ILASM (IL Assembler) is part of the.Net runtime Typical location: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v In the System Path  ILDASM (IL Disassembler) is part of the.Net SDK Typical Location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v2.0\Bin May not be in the System Path

Using ILDASM  Examining the COM-Visible attribute in the disassembled IL

REGASM .Net Assembly Registration Utility  Used to create COM registry entries for.Net component  Syntax: RegAsm AssemblyName [Options] Options: /unregister /regfile[:FileName] /codebase

REGASM Output  With regfile option but without codebase option

REGASM Output  With regfile option and codebase option

Registry Free COM  Not.Net specific, can be used for any COM components  Supported on Windows version XP and later (e.g., 2003, Vista, 2008)  us/library/ms aspx us/library/ms aspx

How Registry Free COM Works Client App Client App.Manifest Dependant Assembly (COM Component) Dependant Assembly.Manifest

GenMan32  Useful utility for generating manifest files for Registry Free COM  Syntax: GenMan32 AssemblyName [Options] Options: /add /out:filename  generate-sxs-manifest-for-managed-assembly-for-registration-free-com-net- interop.aspx generate-sxs-manifest-for-managed-assembly-for-registration-free-com-net- interop.aspx

GenMan32 Output

CCW Limitations  Types, methods, properties, fields and events must all be public  Methods must not be static  Types must have a public default constructor  Overloaded methods should be avoided  Late binding clients can’t retrieve error information from.Net exceptions  PowerBuilder Specific: Events

Avoid Overloaded Methods.Net Class foo ( int a ) foo ( string a ) foo ( long a ) COM Wrapper foo (int a ) foo_2 ( string a ) foo_3 ( long a )

Why error information gets lost PowerBuilder Client CCW.Net Assembly IDispatch Exception 3. Exception Thrown 4.SetErrorInfo 5. GetErrorInfo 1. COM Call 2..Net Call 6. Return from call

What we can do about it Managed Exception Logger Exception Publisher Event Log Debug Window Managed Exception Queue CCW IDispatch Exception

Further Reading  Microsoft’s Exception Handling Application Block us/library/cc aspx  Get Seamless.NET Exception Logging From COM Clients Without Modifying Your Code us/magazine/cc aspx

Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0  Not just forms, but controls as well us/vbasic/bb aspx us/vbasic/bb aspx  Can be used in the Express versions of Visual Studio with some limitations  C# implementation available on CodeProject -_C__Interop_Form.aspx -_C__Interop_Form.aspx

Supporting Events  Create a Interface of type ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIDispatch with the defined events Provide a GUID for the interface Assign a unique DispID for each event  Add a ComSourceInterfaces attribute to the control  Define the events within the control  Call those events from within the user control

Event Declaration Interface

Implementing Events

Events exposed in PowerBuilder

Questions