Connecting to COM objects

Well, as I stumble through this I find some additional documentation for the API that states:

"SConnect  is a collection of web-services that allow external

applications to programmatically exchange data with the

system. It uses XML documents to move data into and

out of the database(s), this allows SConnect to provide

back office integration to any application capable of creating or

consuming these XML documents.

SConnect offers support for web service com-

munication based on the WS-I basic profile 1.1 (WS-BP 1.1)

specification, this includes standards such SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1,

and message security 1.0. It uses HTTP for the transport and of-

fers interoperability across heterogeneous systems."

So, should I be able to SOAP requests?

It just does not look that way. The docs have this example:

Dim objUserProfile as Object

Dim lRetCode as Integer

‘

Set objUserProfile = CreateObject("EnergyAPI.cUserProfile")

lRetCode = objUserProfile.ModifyUserInfo (sEmailAddress,

sPassword,sName,sPAsswordHint,sHintAnswer,lPreferences,cSysUser)

‘

If lRetCode <> 0 Then

  ‘ Failure - Display error message

  Else

    ‘ Success

  End If

Thanks Guys.

To be sure I'm describing this properly, I've got the manual for the API (updated in 2009) and it states

"The  API is a COM+ application (formerly MTS). It

provides a set of COM objects that can be manipulated by COM-

compliant development tools such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual

C#, VSTA and so on.

The API provides the ability to search and locate accounts across

multiple  databases. It uses an advanced data cache mechanism to

minimize round-trips to database servers.

Once the account is located using a 10-digit telephone, and

optionally an account number, each subsequent attempt to connect to an

database requires a company number as well as a valid account

number."

The following example shows how to modify an existing user profile information:

Dim objUserProfile as Object

Dim lRetCode as Integer

‘

Set objUserProfile = CreateObject("EnergyAPI.cUserProfile")

lRetCode = objUserProfile.ModifyUserInfo (sEmailAddress,

sPassword,sName,sPAsswordHint,sHintAnswer,lPreferences,cSysUser)

‘

If lRetCode <> 0 Then

  ‘ Failure - Display error message

  Else

    ‘ Success

  End If

COM+ much different than COM?? Not from what I'm reading.

I've got a project on the horizon that involves using an API to access a database. The API uses COM objects.

I'm sorry to hear that. I would look to see if there are any alternative approaches that might work better. And practically anything will work better. Is there a Java API? How about .NET? Or, how about accessing the database directly via JDBC? COM objects have never worked well with CF, and they work less well from newer versions of CF than they did with older versions.

Can I connect to the API using <cfobject> like this: <cfobject      class = "program ID"     name = "myneatobject"     action = "connect"     context = "remote"     server = "http://someserverip">     type = "com">

Almost certainly, no. To connect to COM objects on a remote server, those objects have to support DCOM ("Distributed COM"). In almost all likelihood, these are not DCOM objects. If they were DCOM objects, you wouldn't be able to use an HTTP URL to refer to the server anyway - CF doesn't support that, and many DCOM servers don't support that either.

If the server is remote, isn't there some security involved? Login credinentials?  I'm trying to ge my head around this.  There's an exisiting website in place using the API, however we're planning on redoing everything in CF.

This would be a matter of how DCOM is configured, and the user account with which CF itself is logged in. By default, CF runs as SYSTEM, which isn't really an account at all and has no network privileges.

Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software

Yes, cfobject is one possible way to connect to a COM object. The assumption is that ColdFusion already has access to the server hosting the COM object. So it is up to you to ensure ColdFusion has the right security credentials.