Subscribe to Windows IT Pro

 

Get Newsletters

  • Get the Latest News
  • Product Updates
  • Helpful Tricks
  • Productivity Tips

Subscribe Now!

March 05, 2008 12:00 AM

Which .NET Classes Can Be Used from Scripts?

Windows IT Pro
InstantDoc ID #98076
Rating: (0)

There's no simple answer to the question of which .NET components can be used from scripts. MSDN does have some documentation about how to write .NET components that can be used by COM applications—but "Exposing .NET Framework Components to COM" (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zsfww439.aspx) is more useful to programmers than to administrators. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to try particular .NET classes and some rules of thumb to determine if they're usable from scripts.

If you're not familiar with .NET classes at all, you can begin by browsing through ".NET Framework Class Library" (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229335.aspx). That page provides links to .NET namespaces, each of which contains one or more classes. If the class documentation's definition includes a ComVisibleAttribute that's set to True, you can try creating it within a script by using CreateObject. Use the fully qualified .NET class name as the programmatic identifier with CreateObject.

Let's look at a quick example. The Queue class documented at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.collections.queue.aspx is COM-visible. You can tell this because the declaration shown in Visual Basic syntax includes the attribute <ComVisibleAttribute(True)>. Queue's fully qualified .NET class name is just the namespace location (System.Collections) with a namespacing dot (.) followed by the class name Queue, so you can create an instance of it in VBScript like this:

set sb = CreateObject("System.Collections.Queue")

You'll need to experiment with particular .NET classes to determine whether they're useful. Be aware that if the documentation says that a class is static, you can't use it, and if a class method is described as overloaded, you can't easily use that method, even if you can create the class.

Related Content:

ARTICLE TOOLS

Comments
    There are no comments to display. Be the first one!
You must log on before posting a comment.

Are you a new visitor? Register Here

advertisement

advertisement

White Papers

Get your Windows 7 deployment off to the right start by implementing PC lockdown. A locked-down environment is easier and cheaper to support since users are less likely to make unnecessary changes to the core system configuration - read more here!

Essential Guides

Is your iSCSI "lossy"? The reality is that most off-the-shelf Ethernet hardware deployed for iSCSI can lose packets, resulting in slow performance or application downtime. Learn how to assess your current iSCSI infrastructure and engineer an advanced iSCSI SAN infrastructure.

Web Seminars

What's the best way to keep your network safe from malware? In this web seminar, security expert Greg Shields suggests an alternative method to the traditional blacklisting approach that is common with anti-virus and anti-malware solutions.

eLearning Series

We bring the experts direct to you to share their real-world perspective and expertise. During each event, three sessions stream in real time, so you can learn, ask questions, and get solutions.
Upcoming event: Getting the Most with Exchange 2010 with Paul Robichaux

Subscribe to Windows IT Pro!

Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. Windows IT Pro is used by Penton Media Inc. under license from owner.