Nsryjdtyk

I have an ActiveX/COM DLL. It contains many methods and properties. I would like to be able to ask it if it has a particular symbol, as per the following snippet:

If HasMethod( "StdLib.DLL", "ReadFileE" ) Then

    ...

End If

Is there a way to do this from, say, VBScript or JScript? If not, where do I go to get the information I need?

After Googling around not quite finding what I wanted, I remembered the Edanmo site which got me thinking about TLBINF32.DLL, downloading Microsoft's TLBINF32.CHM and reading up on GetMembersWithSubStringEx. Below is the implementation of it (done in VB6 with a reference to TLBINF32.DLL), some demo VBScript and output, and the wrapping of that functionality in some VBA.

Public Function SearchTLIMethodsAndProperties(sTypelib As Variant, sSymbol As Variant) As Variant

    Dim SI As SearchItem

    Dim aResults As Variant

    Dim bFound as boolean

    Dim Groups(1) As InvokeKinds

    Groups(0) = INVOKE_FUNC Or INVOKE_PROPERTYGET Or _

        INVOKE_PROPERTYPUT Or INVOKE_PROPERTYPUTREF



    ReDim aResults(0)

    bFound = False

    With TypeLibInfoFromFile(sTypelib)

    .SearchDefault = tliStClasses Or tliStEvents

    For Each SI In .GetMembersWithSubStringEx(sSymbol, Groups)

        bFound = True

        arr.AAdd_PostIncrement aResults, SI.Name

    Next

    End With

    if bFound then 

    ReDim Preserve aResults(UBound(aResults) - 1)

    end if

    SearchTLIMethodsAndProperties = aResults

End Function

VBScript demo. The above code was included in my StdLib DLL in the Registry coclass.

Dim O, R

Set O = CreateObject("Std.Registry")

Set R = CreateObject("Std.Arrays")

WScript.Echo R.ShowStructure( O.SearchTLIMethodsAndProperties( "MSSCRIPT.OCX",""))

Output from the demo (script was run in SciTE).

>cscript "C:foofoo.vbs"

{Add,AddCode,AddObject,AllowUI,Clear,CodeObject,Column,Count,Description,Error,Eval,ExecuteStatement,HasReturnValue,HelpContext,HelpFile,Item,Language,Line,Modules,Name,NumArgs,Number,Procedures,Reset,Run,SitehWnd,Source,State,Text,Timeout,UseSafeSubset}

>Exit code: 0

Finally, the VBA code. A cell has a symbol in it and this routine finds it or returns an error string.

Public Function LookupSymbol(sSym As String) As String

    Dim aRes As Variant

    aRes = reg.SearchTLIMethodsAndProperties("MSSCRIPT.OCX", sSym)

    Dim i As Integer

    LookupSymbol = "!!NotFound!!"

    For i = 0 To UBound(aRes)

    If LCase$(aRes(i)) = LCase$(sSym) Then

        LookupSymbol = sSym

        Exit For

    End If

    Next

End Function

Looking back on it now, I think I might pass in the path to the DLL/OCX as the first parameter.

I have used Microsofts interactive OLE/COM-Object viewer to find mehods and their parameters in ActiveX-DLLs. Maybe looking at the source code of the viewer will lead you in the right direction: MSDN OleView sample

If you want to do it programmatically - I'm not aware of a simple way to do that. Anyway, if you really need to (and if your programming language is capable enough) - you can query the type library (refer to ITypeLib description somewhere at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms221549.aspx).

Also, if you already have an IDispatch pointer - you might consider using its services to dynamically enumerate methods supported by the interface (refer to IDispatch description in MSDN).