l

Visual Basic Programming Libraries

Model 793.00 Software
793.00 Visual Basic Programming Libraries User Guide
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Proprietary data
This manual, and the software is describes, are both copyrighted, with all rights reserved.
Under the copyright laws, neither this manual nor the software may be copied, in whole
or part, without written consent of MTS Systems Corporation, except in the normal use of
the software or to make a backup copy of the software. The same proprietary and
copyright notices must be affixed to any permitted copies as are made for others, whether
or not sold, but all of the material purchased (with all backup copies) may be sold, given,
or loaned to another person. Under the law, copying includes translating into another
language or format. This software may be used on any computer, but extra copies cannot
be made for that purpose.
Copyright information
1999-2003 MTS Systems Corporation. All rights reserved.
Trademark information
MTS, the MTS logo, and TestWare are registered trademarks of the MTS Systems
Corporation.
FlexTest, Station Builder, Station Manager, TestStar, and TestWare are trademarks of the
MTS Systems Corporation.
Microsoft, Windows NT, and Visual Basic, and Visual C++ are registered trademarks of
the Microsoft Corporation.
Publication Information
Software Version No. Document No. Release Date
2.4 100-003-353 February 1999
3.0 100-037-822 June 2000
3.1 September 2000
3.2 July 2001
3.3 November 2002
3.4 September 2003
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction 4
Overview 4
Prerequisites 4
For more information 4
Chapter 2 Usage notes 5
Configuring a Visual Basic project to use the 793.00 components 5
Classes and interfaces 6
Object lifetimes 7
Event handling 8
Collections 8
Component diagrams 9
Foundation components 9
Dimensions and units components 9
System and station components 10
Signal components 11
Control channel and mode components 11
Function generation components 12
Data acquisition components 14
Time history data acquisition components 16
Detector components 16
Station hydraulic and interlock components 17
Miscellaneous components 18
Chapter 3 Sample programs 20
LogMonitor 20
SetLevel 20
SimpleTest 20
Chapter 4 Advanced topics 21
Component Object Model (COM) 21
Object references 21
Vtable interfaces 22
Message filters 23
Appendix 1 Using other development tools 24
Vtable outgoing interfaces 24
Enumerators 24
Passing arrays to functions 24
Getting class declarations into C++ 24
Appendix 2 Redistributing applications 26
Files required 26
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Overview
The 793.00 Visual Basic Programming Libraries support Visual Basic developers who
want to create applications for controllers running MTS 793.00 System Software. This
document provides an overview of the programming libraries, including the interface
design and some usage tips.
The design of the Visual Basic programming libraries is based on the C++ real-time
programming model for the 793.00 platform. The two programming interfaces are
intentionally very similar.
Prerequisites
Using the 793.00 Visual Basic libraries requires familiarity with Visual Basic
component-based development. This includes knowledge of classes, interfaces, and
events. For some of the more advanced topics, you will also need some background
knowledge about Microsofts Component Object Model (COM), which is the underlying
protocol used by Visual Basic for creating and using components.
For more information
For more details about the functions in the Visual Basic programming interface, please
refer to the 793.00 C++ Programming Libraries User Guide. That document provides
detailed information about the various classes, objects, and functions in the system for
developers using the C++ API. Because of the similarity with the Visual Basic API, that
document also serves as the reference for VB developers. By referring to the C++ User
Guide in conjunction with this document, you can create applications that use the full set
of features of the MTS 793.00 System Software.
For more information about COM, there are several good reference books available. For
detailed information about how COM works, read Kraig Brockschmidts Inside OLE,
Second Edition (MS Press). Another good overview of COM is Essential COM by Don
Box (Addison Wesley). Both of these books approach COM primarily from a C/C++
programmers perspective. For a less technical description of COM, see Understanding
ActiveX and OLE by David Chappell (MS Press).
One source of more information about Visual Basic and COM is Don Boxs series of
columns in Microsoft Systems Journal. Although he doesnt write exclusively about
Visual Basic, his topics often deal with using COM from VB. There are also several
journals available that focus on Visual Basic and, to various degrees, component-based
development.
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Chapter 2
Usage notes
Configuring a Visual Basic project to use the 793.00 components
Before you can use any of the MTS 793.00 Visual Basic libraries in a Visual Basic
project, you must add references to the appropriate components. Open the
Project/References dialog box and click to add references to MTS 793.00 Box
Detection Support, MTS 793.00 General Utilities, MTS 793.00 Real-time
Programming Interface, and MTS 793.00 Units Support. The following figure shows
the Visual Basic References window open with the appropriate entries checked:

Once you have added references to the MTS 793.00 libraries, you can write programs
that use the components in the libraries. To browse the available methods and properties,
use the Visual Basic Object Browser. The browser also includes a short description of
each class and its members. For example, if you want more information on the
RtSystem object, you would see:
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Classes and interfaces
The 793.00 Visual Basic Programming Libraries use a multi-interface design, where
components often support more than one interface for clients to use. An application
asks a component for one or more interfaces. In Visual Basic, the functionality
available from a component depends on the type of the variable used to reference the
component. This will be described in more detail in the following paragraphs.
Unfortunately, Visual Basic does not expose information about which interfaces are
supported by each component through its Object Browser or its type system. In
particular, Visual Basic often blurs the distinction between an objects class and its
default interface by interchanging their names in its type system. For example, given a
component of type RtSystem with a default interface of IRtSystem, Visual Basic
uses RtSystem as both the class name and as the name of the interface through which
functions are invoked. Although Visual Basic allows the use of IRtSystem, it hides
the interface in the browser and the Quick Info windows, preferring the use of
RtSystem instead.
In C/C++ COM coding, the QueryInterface() function is used to request a specific
interface from a component. In Visual Basic, the Set statement is used instead of
QueryInterface(). If you want to see if a component supports a specific interface,
use the Set statement to assign the object to a reference of another type. For example,
Dim x as new RtSystem
Dim y as INamed
x.Connect , AppName, AppName
Set y = x
MsgBox y.DisplayName
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The Set statement will automatically call QueryInterface() to see if the
RtSystem component supports the INamed interface. If the component does not
support the requested interface, Visual Basic will generate a type mismatch error which
will stop the application unless an error handler is installed. If the component does
support the requested interface, Visual Basic will then have two references to the object,
one through the variable x and another through the variable y. This technique is used to
access the various functions supported by the components in the 793.00 Visual Basic
libraries.
Interfaces group together related methods and properties. They are used to help organize
the functionality in a logical way and also to provide polymorphism when appropriate.
For example, objects that are named support the INamed interface. Any function
requiring a named object can use this interface, regardless of the type of the component.
Another example is the IRtTask interface; this interface is supported by all components
in the system that have the behavior of a task, that is, can be started, stopped, etc. Any
application code that operates on tasks can work with any object that supports IRtTask.
Object lifetimes
In certain cases, it is crucial for an application developer to understand when an object is
created and when it will be destroyed. A good example of this is a read-write segment
generator. When an application gets a reference to an RtReadWriteSg, it has
effectively locked the segment generator for that channel so no other applications can use
it. When the application is finished with the segment generator, it should release the
reference to the RtReadWriteSg so it will again be available for other applications.
All references to an object and its children must be released before the object will free its
resources. If you allocate a read-write segment generator and create a ramp profile, just
releasing the read-write segment generator will not unlock it. All profiles created through
this segment generator must also be released.
In Visual Basic, references to objects are released in one of two ways. First, whenever a
variable goes out of scope, it releases its reference. Second, an application can explicitly
release a reference by assigning Nothing to an object. For example, consider the
following code excerpt:
Private rwsg As RtReadWriteSg
Private ramp As RtSegment

Public Sub StartFG(chan As RtChannel)
Dim task As IRtTask
Set rwsg = chan.AllocSegGen
Set ramp = rwsg.CreateProfile(oProfSegment, ...)
... configure the ramp and queue it ...
Set task = rwsg
task.Start
End Sub

Public Sub StopFG()
Dim task As IRtTask
Set task = rwsg
task.Stop
Set task = Nothing
Set ramp = Nothing
Set rwsg = Nothing
End Sub
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In the StopFG subroutine, if only the rwsg variable were set to Nothing, the read-
write segment generator would not be unlocked since the ramp variable would still be
referencing a child profile.
Similar rules apply if an application wants to free other resources. If an application is
collecting data, it must release all references to acquisition-related objects before the
resources are freed on the 793.00 controller. If an application wishes to disconnect from a
station, it cannot hold any references to station objects such as channels or signals.
The topic of object references and lifetimes is discussed in more general terms in
Chapter 4 in the section Object references.
Event handling
The 793.00 Visual Basic libraries present events to client applications using COM
connection points. Connection points are a standard, general-purpose COM protocol for
delivering events to clients. In Visual Basic, connection points are accessed using the
WithEvents keyword.
There are two steps to handling an event in Visual Basic. First, an object must be
declared using WithEvents:
Dim WithEvents stream As RtLogStream
Next, the appropriate event handler functions must be written:
Private Sub stream_OnNewMessages()
End Sub
When the server object fires the events, the event handler will be called.
Collections
The 793.00 Visual Basic libraries return collections as an IObjectCollection
reference. Visual Basic clients see this as an object of type ObjectCollection.
Whether your application iterates through the collection using ForEach or by
explicitly calling the Item method, the application gets back an IUnknown reference.
This type is even more limited than the Object type in VB. It must be Set to the
desired interface before use. Here is a code sample that shows how to use an
ObjectCollection:
' Get the list of stations and display them in the combo box
Dim names As ObjectCollection
Dim s As Variant
Dim n As INamed
Set names = sys.StationNames
For Each s In names
Set n = s
comboStations.AddItem n.DisplayName
Next s
If you prefer using the Item method, the code would become:
' Get the list of stations and display them in the combo box
Dim names As ObjectCollection
Dim n As INamed
Dim i As Integer
Set names = sys.StationNames
For i = 1 To names.Count
Set n = names.Item(i)
comboStations.AddItem n.DisplayName
Next i
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Component diagrams
The following diagrams show the components provided by the 793.00 Visual Basic
Programming Libraries and the interfaces supported by each component. This reference
can be used along with the Visual Basic Object Browser to see what capabilities are
provided by the various components and interfaces in the system. The diagrams show
both the incoming and outgoing (event) interfaces. The event interfaces are accessed
using the WithEvents keyword in Visual Basic. For easier event implementations in
non-VB tools, both a dispatch event interface and a vtable event interface is supported by
each component that has events. Other than this difference, the two event interfaces
support an identical set of events.
Foundation components
ObjectCollection
IUnknown
IObjectCollection

Dimensions and units components
DimensionDB
IUnknown
IDimensionDB
Dimension
IUnknown
IDimension
INamed

Unit
IUnknown
IUnit
INamed UnitAssignmentSet
IUnknown
IUnitAssignmentSet

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Range
IUnknown
IRange
IRangeEvents
DIRangeEvents

System and station components
RtSystem
IUnknown
IRtSystem
IRtObject
INamed
RtStation
IUnknown
IRtStation
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtStationEvents
IRtStationEvents
IRtStationAppCommunication
IRtStationCommands

MTSBoxInfo
IUnknown
IMTSBoxInfo
MTSBox
IUnknown
IMTSBox
INamed

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Signal components
RtFloatSig
IUnknown
IRtFloatSig
IRtObject
INamed
IRtSignal
IRtFloatSigCommands
RtIntegerSig
IUnknown
IRtIntegerSig
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtIntegerSigEvents
IRtIntegerSigEvents
IRtSignal
IRtIntegerSigCommands
IRtTask

Control channel and mode components
RtChannel
IUnknown
IRtChannel
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtChannelEvents
IRtChannelEvents
IRtChannelCommands
RtCtrlMode
IUnknown
IRtCtrlMode
IRtObject
INamed

RtSegGen
IUnknown
IRtSegGen
IRtObject

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Function generation components
RtReadWriteSg
IUnknown
IRtReadWriteSg
IRtObject
IRtTask
IRtSegGen
DIRtReadWriteSgEvents
IRtReadWriteSgEvents
RtProfile
IUnknown
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents

RtStep
IUnknown
IRtStep
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents
RtStay
IUnknown
IRtStay
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents

RtSegment
IUnknown
IRtSegment
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents
RtCyclic
IUnknown
IRtCyclic
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents

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RtCyclic2
IUnknown
IRtCyclic2
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents
RtSweep
IUnknown
IRtSweep
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtSweepEvents
IRtSweepEvents

RtExternal
IUnknown
IRtExternal
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents
RtSeries
IUnknown
IRtSeries
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents

RtRandom
IUnknown
IRtRandom
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents
RtCyclic2Buffer
IUnknown
IRtCyclic2Buffer
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents

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RtBlock
IUnknown
IRtBlock
IRtProfile
IRtObject
DIRtProfileEvents
IRtProfileEvents
RtCompensator
IUnknown
IRtCompensator
IRtObject
INamed


RtMsgBlaster
IUnknown
IRtMsgBlaster
IRtObject

Data acquisition components
RtAcq
IUnknown
IRtAcq
IRtObject
DIRtAcqEvents
IRtAcqEvents
IRtTask
RtTimeTrigger
IUnknown
IRtTimeTrigger
IRtTrigger
IRtObject
IRtTask

RtDeltaTrigger
IUnknown
IRtDeltaTrigger
IRtTrigger
IRtObject
IRtTask
RtLevelTrigger
IUnknown
IRtLevelTrigger
IRtTrigger
IRtObject
IRtTask

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RtReversalTrigger
IUnknown
IRtReversalTrigger
IRtTrigger
IRtObject
IRtTask
RtHsTimeTrigger
IUnknown
IRtHsTimeTrigger
IRtTrigger
IRtObject
IRtTask

RtEndLevelTrigger
IUnknown
IRtEndLevelTrigger
IRtTrigger
IRtObject
IRtTask
RtLinearBuffer
IUnknown
IRtLinearBuffer
IRtBuffer
IRtObject
DIRtBufferEvents
IRtBufferEvents

RtLinearCBuffer
IUnknown
IRtLinearCBuffer
IRtBuffer
IRtObject
DIRtBufferEvents
IRtBufferEvents
RtCircularBuffer
IUnknown
IRtCircularBuffer
IRtBuffer
IRtObject
DIRtBufferEvents
IRtBufferEvents

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Time history data acquisition components
RtTimeHistAcq
IUnknown
IRtTimeHistAcq
IRtObject
DIRtTimeHistAcqEvents
IRtTimeHistAcqEvents
IRtTask
RtTimeHistBuffer
IUnknown
IRtTimeHistBuffer
IRtObject
DIRtTimeHistBufferEvents
IRtTimeHistBufferEvents

Detector components
RtFloatLdt
IUnknown
IRtFloatLdt
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtFloatLdtEvents
IRtFloatLdtEvents
IRtTask
IRtFloatGroupLdt
RtIntegerLdt
IUnknown
IRtIntegerLdt
IRtObject
DIRtIntegerLdtEvents
IRtIntegerLdtEvents
IRtTask

RtBooleanLdt
IUnknown
IRtBooleanLdt
IRtObject
DIRtBooleanLdtEvents
IRtBooleanLdtEvents
IRtTask
RtPeakValleyLdt
IUnknown
IRtPeakValleyLdt
IRtObject
DIRtIntegerLdtEvents
IRtIntegerLdtEvents
IRtTask

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RtIntegerRangeDt
IUnknown
IRtIntegerRangeDt
IRtObject
IRtTask
RtFloatABLdt
IUnknown
IRtFloatABLdt
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtFloatABLdtEvents
IRtFloatABLdtEvents
IRtTask

RtAction
IUnknown
IRtAction
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtActionEvents
IRtActionEvents
IRtActionCommands
RtCommand
IUnknown
IRtCommand
IRtObject

Station hydraulic and interlock components
RtHps
IUnknown
IRtHps
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtHpsEvents
IRtHpsEvents
RtHsm
IUnknown
IRtHsm
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtHsmEvents
IRtHsmEvents
IRtHsmCommands

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RtInterlock
IUnknown
IRtInterlock
IRtObject
DIRtInterlockEvents
IRtInterlockEvents
INamed
IRtInterlockCommands

Miscellaneous components
RtTimer
IUnknown
IRtTimer
IRtObject
DIRtTimerEvents
IRtTimerEvents
RtSequence
IUnknown
IRtSequence
IRtObject
INamed

RtLog
IUnknown
IRtLog
IRtObject
IRtLogCommands
RtLogStream
IUnknown
IRtLogStream
IRtObject
DIRtLogStreamEvents
IRtLogStreamEvents

RtSpanGrp
IUnknown
IRtSpanGrp
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtSpanGrpEvents
IRtSpanGrpEvents
RtSyncGroup
IUnknown
IRtSyncGroup
IRtObject
IRtTask

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RtSignalList
IUnknown
IRtSignalList
IRtObject RtRsc
IUnknown
IRtRsc
IRtObject
INamed

RtSemaphore
IUnknown
IRtSemaphore
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtSemaphoreEvents
IRtSemaphoreEvents
RtCalcParm
IUnknown
IRtCalcParm
IRtObject
INamed
DIRtCalcParmEvents
IRtCalcParmEvents

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Chapter 3
Sample programs
LogMonitor
This sample application demonstrates how to monitor and add to the station log. It also
shows how to connect to different stations.
SetLevel
This application demonstrates a variety of ways to manipulate a command signal on a
control channel and also how to monitor the feedback signal. Some other interesting
points include manual mode switches, using the RtTimer object, how to tell if a
setpoint adjustment is complete, and how to use an event to signal the completion of a
ramp.
SimpleTest
This sample application is a simple cyclic test that generates a sine wave and collects data
on one or more input signals, writing the data out to a file. Some highlights of this code
include buffered data acquisition, controlling the run/stop/hold state on the pod, using
unit conversions for data input and display, and responding to interlocks while a test is
running.
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Chapter 4
Advanced topics
Component Object Model (COM)
The Visual Basic libraries are implemented as a group of components exposing their
capabilities through a set of COM interfaces. COM is a binary standard established by
Microsoft for component- and language-interoperability. It has sometimes been known
by other acronyms such as OLE and ActiveX. For more information about COM, review
the references listed in the first chapter of this document.
COM components are black boxes that expose their functions to external clients using
interfaces, which can be thought of as contracts to provide a set of services. In typical
Visual Basic development, components have a single interface that is associated with the
object. However, COM supports any number of interfaces on a single component, as does
Visual Basic, albeit somewhat indirectly.
Object references
Since the 793.00 Visual Basic libraries are created as COM components, they must
follow the rules of COM reference counting. This can create some interesting situations.
Consider the following code sequence:
1. Create an RtSystem object and connect to the system
2. Get an RtStation object by connecting to a station on the system.
3. Get the list of RtFloatSigs in the station and store one signal in a variable for later use.
4. Release all references to the RtSystem, RtStation, and list of RtFloatSigs. Hang on to
the single signal.
Consider what should happen after the fourth step. In the native C++ API, if an
application deleted the station and system objects, all connections would be lost and any
pointers the application held to individual signals would now be invalid. But in COM, all
references held by an application must remain valid until the application releases them.
The remaining reference to the signal is still valid and will still work as expected. This
means the station and system are alive until the last reference to a related object is
released. In a sense, there is a network of objects and any reference to a single object in
that network keeps the entire network alive. The following diagram shows the runtime
object relationships between some of the real-time objects provided by the VB API:
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RtSystem
RtFloatSig
1
0..*
0..*
RtInterlock
RtIntegerSig
0..*
0..*
RtCtrlMode
1..*
RtSegGen
1
RtChannel
1..*
1
0..1
RtReadWriteSg
0..1
RtProfile
0..* 0..*
RtStation
0..*
1
0..*
0..*
0..*
RtLog
11
A reference to a signal
here keeps the station
and system active.

As long as the application keeps a reference to any one of the objects in the above
diagram, the entire network stays active. Applications can use the IRtObject interface
to traverse the runtime object hierarchy. In IDL, this interface is described as:
interface IRtObject : IUnknown
{
[propget] HRESULT Parent([out, retval] IRtObject** parent);
[propget] HRESULT Station([out, retval] IRtStation** station);
[propget] HRESULT System([out, retval] IRtSystem** system);
HRESULT GetPropertyValue([in] BSTR propNmKey,
[out, retval] INamed** propVal);
};
Thus, given any real-time object, an application can get the associated station and the
parent of that object.
Vtable interfaces
The components provided in the 793.00 Visual Basic libraries do not use dispatch
interfaces (often called Automation interfaces). Instead, they provide vtable interfaces
(sometimes called custom interfaces). This means that objects from the MTS libraries
cannot be assigned to the Visual Basic Object type because any objects assigned to the
Object type must have a dispatch interface. Objects should also be created with the
new keyword. The following code will not work with the 793.00 libraries:
Dim s As Object
Set s = CreateObject(MTS793Rt.RtSystem)
Instead, the following code is used:
Dim s As RtSystem
Set s = New RtSystem
The use of vtable interfaces also enforces stricter type checking at compile time. Runtime
binding is not supported (this is a feature supported explicitly by dispatch interfaces).
Because runtime binding is not supported, there are certain development environments
such as VBScript that cannot access the 793.00 libraries.
The use of vtable interfaces affects how the collections returned by the VB API are used.
The main impact is that the returned object reference must be Set to a reference of the
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desired type before it can be used. See the earlier section on using 793.00 object
collections for more information.
Message filters
If an application includes code inside VB timer events or paint handlers, you need to
ensure that you do not make a call into the MTS 793.00 Visual Basic libraries while you
are inside another call in the libraries. Visual Basic will report an error if you try to do
this. The error is coming from the COM runtime and is error number 0x80010005,
RPC_E_CANTCALLOUT_INEXTERNALCALL. This error seems to happen more
often in compiled applications than in the VB environment.
What happens is that while VB is waiting for a call to the MTS libraries to return, VB
receives a timer or paint event and allows the application to handle it. At this point, COM
will not allow another call into the MTS libraries to prevent certain deadlock situations.
There are several workarounds for this:
Use RtTimer objects rather than Visual Basic timers.
Do not call any MTS library routines from timer or paint events.
Replace the Visual Basic COM message filter, which is the code that decides
whether events should be allowed through to the application while waiting for a
remote server to respond.
The message filter is a standard COM facility, but we recommend caution when
overriding Visual Basics built-in message filter. Also, providing your own message filter
usually requires C or C++ coding. A simple implementation of the replacement message
filter will have IMessageFilter::MessagePending()return
PENDINGMSG_WAITNOPROCESS for all messages. This will prevent VB timers
from firing events while in a call to the MTS libraries, but it may also make your
application appear less responsive if it spends a lot of time in the MTS libraries.
The same problem can occur in applications developed with tools other than VB.
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Appendix 1
Using other development tools
Vtable outgoing interfaces
When a component supports events, the default outgoing event interface is a dispatch
interface suitable for Visual Basic clients. However, developers using other tools such as
C++ may find it more convenient to use a vtable interface instead. Each component with
events supports an alternate vtable event interface to make coding in such environments
more convenient.
Use a type library browser such as the Microsoft OLE-COM Object Viewer to see the
details about the supported event interfaces. The vtable interface is always named with
the component class as the root, prefixed by I and suffixed by Events. For example,
the Range component class has a vtable event interface called IRangeEvents.
Events interfaces are configured using connection points. Consult one of the available
COM references for information on connection points.
Enumerators
Collections are objects that follow a COM protocol known by Visual Basic so
applications can enumerate the objects contained in the collection. Non-VB clients may
find it more convenient to use traditional COM enumerators. Whenever there is a method
returning an IObjectCollection*, we have tried to provide a corresponding
method returning an IEnumUnknown*.
Passing arrays to functions
Most array parameters are passed from Visual Basic clients to the MTS libraries as
SAFEARRAYs. SAFEARRAYs are used by Visual Basic internally for array storage.
Non-VB clients may find it more natural to work with raw memory arrays. Whenever
there is a method using a SAFEARRAY parameter, we have tried to provide a
corresponding method that uses a pointer to the array base type and a count indicating the
length of the memory array. These functions have a V suffix to distinguish them from the
SAFEARRAY versions.
Getting class declarations into C++
If you are developing a client using Visual C++, there are several ways to access the
information required to use the 793.00 COM interface. The CD-ROM contains a folder
with C and C++ header files that you can include directly into your source files. These
header files were generated by the Microsoft IDL compiler. The required header files are:
ocom_util.h
ocom_units.h
ocom_rt.h
ocom_boxes.h
You will also need to include some C source files in your project to provide definitions of
the various UUIDs provided by the 793.00 COM interface. You may need to include one
or more of these files in your project:
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ocom_util_i.c
ocom_units_i.c
ocom_rt_i.c
ocom_boxes_i.c
All of these files are located on the MTS 793.00 Programming Libraries CD-ROM in the
folder called COM-CPP-HDRS.
Alternatively, you can use the #import directive in Visual C++ to access the
information directly from the type libraries included in the COM servers. Please refer to
the Visual C++ documentation for more information on how to use #import.
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Appendix 2
Redistributing applications
Files required
If you wish to distribute an application using the 793.00 Visual Basic libraries to other
users who do not have development licenses, you will need to include several runtime
components with your application. The runtime files are installed into the ntbin folder,
which is in the main installation folder for the 793.00 System Software. The files required
are:
...\ntbin\ocom_util.dll
...\ntbin\ocom_utilps.dll
...\ntbin\ocom_units.dll
...\ntbin\ocom_unitsps.dll
...\ntbin\ocom_rt.exe
...\ntbin\ocom_rtps.dll
...\ntbin\ocom_boxes.exe
...\ntbin\ocom_boxesps.dll
Your installation program should not overwrite newer versions of these files if they are
present on the users system.
These files must be registered on the users system as COM servers in the order listed.
The DLLs can be registered using regsvr32.exe, a Microsoft-provided
redistributable file:
Regsvr32.exe ocom_xxx.dll
The EXE files can be registered by running them with the appropriate command line
option:
ocom_rt.exe /RegServer
ocom_boxes.exe /RegServer
Most installation development tools will provide ways to automatically register COM
servers.