LOCCLIEN - Client of Out-of-process Local Server


SUMMARY
=======

The LOCCLIEN sample presents the same series of car-related components
that were studied in previous lessons. The LOCCLIEN/LOCSERVE client/server
pair is analogous to the DLLCLIEN/DLLSERVE pair. The main difference is
that LOCCLIEN must cross process boundaries to access components in the
out-of-process local server LOCSERVE. In contrast, DLLCLIEN could directly
access components in the in-process server DLLSERVE. The LOCCLIEN lesson
illustrates how a client can access and control components in an
out-of-process local server.

The COM objects that LOCCLIEN manipulates are the car-related ones of
previous samples, with the following interfaces: ICar, IUtility, and
ICruise. LOCCLIEN works in conjunction with the separate LOCSERVE.EXE,
which provides the COCar, COUtilityCar, and COCruiseCar COM objects.

LOCCLIEN.EXE creates its own COUtilityCruiseCar COM object, which is
constructed by reusing the COCruiseCar COM object by containment and
augmenting it with a native implementation of the IUtility interface.
Because the COCruiseCar COM object class is an aggregate--that is, it
reuses an inner COCar object by aggregation--LOCCLIEN illustrates nesting
COM objects by mixed reuse. The composite COUtilityCruiseCar object is
constructed by containment reuse of COCruiseCar, another composite COM
object. COCruiseCar is constructed by aggregation reuse of the COCar COM
object. The composition of COUtilityCruiseCar is also interesting because
the COUtilityCruiseCar object's containment of the COCruiseCar object
crosses the process boundary between LOCCLIEN and the out-of-process local
server LOCSERVE.EXE. LOCCLIEN thus relies on standard marshaling support
for the custom interfaces it uses on the COCruiseCar object. This
marshaling support was separately built as MARSHAL.DLL in the earlier
MARSHAL code sample.

For functional descriptions and a tutorial code tour of LOCCLIEN, see the
Code Tour section in LOCCLIEN.HTM. For details on the external user
operation of LOCCLIEN, see both the Usage and Operation sections in
LOCCLIEN.HTM. To read LOCCLIEN.HTM, run TUTORIAL.EXE in the main tutorial
directory and click the LOCCLIEN lesson in the table of lessons. You can
also achieve the same thing by clicking the LOCCLIEN.HTM file after
locating the main tutorial directory in the Windows Explorer. See also
LOCSERVE.HTM in the main tutorial directory for more details on how
LOCSERVE works and exposes its services to LOCCLIEN. You must build
LOCSERVE.EXE before building LOCCLIEN. The makefile for LOCSERVE
automatically registers that server in the registry, so you must build
LOCSERVE before attempting to run LOCCLIEN.

Because client and server reside in separate processes, both LOCCLIEN and
LOCSERVE rely on marshaling for the ICar, IUtility, and ICruise interfaces.
This support was provided by the previous MARSHAL code sample, so you must
also build the MARSHAL code sample prior to building and running LOCCLIEN
and LOCSERVE.

For details on setting up your system to build and test the code samples
in this COM Tutorial series, see TUTORIAL.HTM. The supplied MAKEFILE is
Microsoft NMAKE-compatible. To create a debug build, issue the NMAKE
command in the Command Prompt window.

Usage
-----

LOCCLIEN is an application that you can execute directly from Windows in
the normal manner or from the Command Prompt window. No command line
parameters are recognized by LOCCLIEN.


FILES
=====

Files          Description

LOCCLIEN.TXT   This file.
MAKEFILE       The generic makefile for building the code sample
               application of this tutorial lesson.
LOCCLIEN.H     The include file for the LOCCLIEN application. Contains
               class declarations, function prototypes, and resource
               identifiers.
LOCCLIEN.CPP   The main implementation file for LOCCLIEN.EXE. Has WinMain
               and CMainWindow implementation, as well as the main menu
               dispatching.
LOCCLIEN.RC    The application resource definition file.
LOCCLIEN.ICO   The application icon resource.
UTCRUCAR.H     The class declaration for the COUtilityCruiseCar COM object.
UTCRUCAR.CPP   Implementation file for the COUtilityCruiseCar COM object.
               Also has the definition of the CreateUtilityCruiseCar
               function.