Working with Automation Servers

You can expose functionality that other applications can use by creating Automation servers in Visual FoxPro.

For example, you can create an Automation server that displays reusable forms or packages a complex routine into a more simple component that other programmers can use. You can create classes for creating objects to handle enterprise-wide business rules. A client application can use those business rule objects to call methods and pass parameters to the Automation server, which can retrieve or store data, perform operations, and return results.

In This Section

• Automation Servers in Visual FoxPro
  Provides an overview of creating and using Automation servers.

• How to: Create Automation Servers
  Describes how to create Automation servers.

• Automation Server Programming Notes
  Provides links to topics that explain additional information on creating automation servers.

• How to: Build Automation Servers
  Describes how to compile Automation servers.

• How to: Register Automation Servers
  Describes how to register Automation servers so other applications can access them.

• Binding Type Libraries
  Discusses Visual FoxPro support for intrinsic Visual FoxPro properties, events, and methods in an Automation server type library.

• Early (vtable) and Late (IDispatch) Binding
  Discusses Visual FoxPro support for dual interface support, early (vtable) and late (Idispatch) binding.

• Passing Arrays to Automation Servers
  Discusses how to pass an array to an Automation server by using the COMARRAY( ) function.

• Compiling Source Code
  Describes how to enable an application to generate and compile a program (.prg) file during run time.

• Scalability and Multithreading
  Explains the differences between a component with one thread of execution and a component with multithreading. Furthermore, it explains how both types of execution work using serialization, and its importance.

Related Sections

• Server Design Considerations and Limitations
  Describes certain behaviors, processes, and limitations that can determine the effectiveness of your server application.

• Controlling Visual FoxPro from Other Applications
  Discusses how you can control Visual FoxPro from other applications by using the Visual FoxPro Application object. Applications that support Automation can create instances of Visual FoxPro, run Visual FoxPro commands, and access Visual FoxPro objects.

• Sharing Information and Adding OLE
  Explains how you can use Visual FoxPro to share information with other applications.