4 OLE Automation

4.2 About the OLE-Automation library

The OLE-Automation library allows you to create an application that can be used as an OLE Automation server or controller. The OLE-Automation library includes a high-level framework for OLE Automation as well as a low-level FFI interface to the Microsoft OLE Automation API, as exposed through OLEAUTO.H, OLEAUT32.LIB, and OLEAUT32.DLL.

Because OLE Automation is a COM technology, some of the names that Automation applications use are actually defined in the Dylan COM library instead of the OLE-Automation library. However, they are all re-exported by OLE-Automation so that you do not need to use COM directly.

By convention, functions from the higher-level part of the library are generally shown beginning with a lower case letter, while lower-level function names begin with an upper case letter, the same as in the Microsoft documentation for use from C or C++, except that "-" is used in place of "_" and a "$" or "?" may be added where appropriate. See Chapter 9, "OLE FFI Facilities" for more on OLE/COM FFI library conventions.

OLE Automation applications do not need to use the Dylan OLE library, which is concerned only with implementing compound documents.