Extended Mapi!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hans
  • Start date Start date
You can sure try... But why would you want to? VB is a tool, and the tool
must be selected based on the task, not the other way around when the task
is modified to fit the tool.

Dmitry Streblechenko (MVP)
http://www.dimastr.com/
OutlookSpy - Outlook, CDO
and MAPI Developer Tool
 
You can sure try... But why would you want to?
Click to expand...
Because many people know how to program in VB but has no skills in
Delphi/C++.



I'm not trying to do anything particular here I'm just curious. I have used
your redemption component for a couple of years and that probably saved me a
lot of time but when asked by a colleague why extended mapi cannot be used
from VB I could not give an answer.



I have seen many answers to this question and most of them say it is
impossible but I have not found an answer why it is impossible. I suspect
that there are complex datastructures that cannot be handled by VB but I'm
not sure. Maybe it is a myth that it cannot be accessed from VB?


Regards
/Hans
 
Complex data structures and "raw" pointers is just a side-effect of the fact
that MAPI is COM-based and not Automation-compatible. If you look at
declarations of MAPI interfaces you will see that they are IUnknown-derived
and not IDispatch-derived. This means that there is no way you can bind to
those interfaces in runtime. You have to compile and link your code using
headers/libs in order to bind to MAPI API. What you can do though is to
write an automation-compatible wrapper around each MAPI interface / each
MAPI data structure and use it from VB... But it's easier to learn
C++/Delphy :-)
 
Actually you can have IUnknown-derived interfaces described in a type
library and VB can use them just fine, but the MAPI data structures are the
problem. They cannot be defined in a type library, and I am not sure they
can be defined in VB code either.

Dmitry Streblechenko (MVP)
http://www.dimastr.com/
OutlookSpy - Outlook, CDO
and MAPI Developer Tool
 
Thanks Vladimir and Dmitry!

Well I guess I have to start coding Delphi again. Have not been working with
Delphi since 16-bit Delphi 1.0 (like Delphi more than C++)!

Regards
/Hans
 
Back
Top