I am receiving 0x8002003 COM exception when I try to access a public property in an unmanaged COM component written in OO COBOL (Fujitsu NetCOBOL - not their DotNET product. NetCOBOL is a full OO implementation and creates COM components that function correctly. I have dropped them on ASP pages as well as used them on the Windows desktop)

The component has a property defined as 8192 bytes (for compatibility with COM BString). I need to set this property, invoke a method called "FIB" (Fill in the blanks), then access the property to see what happened.

I'm using C# Express so I don't have the SDK tools like TLBIMP.exe.

Fortunately, I don't seem to need them as the IDE has generated an interop Assembly for me and when I look at this with the Object Browser I can see that it has the interfaces and property I require.

I think I am missing something fairly obvious, probably due to my inexperience with C#. I would therefore be extremely grateful if someone could have a look at what I've done and suggest improvements...:-)

For example... am I instantiating the COM object correctly (It returns a reference OK but maybe it's the wrong reference )

When I pass the 8192 bytes to the set_INTERFACEBLOCK method The IDE shows the parameter list for the method as (ref string __p1).

Can anyone explain what this __P1 means, and do I have to do anything about it (I tried everything I can think of and have spent 4 full days on this before posting here...)

Here's my C# code:

private void AccessNZPOCOMSvr()

try

NZPOCOMSVR.NZPOCOMSVRClass objAVS = new NZPOCOMSVR.NZPOCOMSVRClass();

string inIB = "59 Felton Mathew Ave Mt Wellington ";

objAVS.set_INTERFACEBLOCK(ref inIB); //<-- it fails here

catch (COMException ex)

MessageBox.Show("Error: Problem with COM interfacing \n" +

ex.Message, "Interfacing to AVS engine code");

this.Close();

return;

The exception occurs on the set_INTERFACEBLOCK(ref inIB) statement. It says there is a Member not found, but the Object Browser shows that the interop Assembly generated from the TLB DOES have all the members referenced.

Here's a link to a screen shot of the Object Browser, showing the Namespace in question:

http://www.hide-link.com/ ~dashwood/dashwood/AVSProject.jpg

Any and all observations, suggestions, and, especially, solutions, will be very much appreciated

Pete.

Thanks very much for your response (It's nice to know we are not alone when trying to resolve problems )

I tried your suggestion (which seemed very reasonable to me), but it won't compile. I received the following error:

"Property, indexer, or event 'INTERFACEBLOCK' is not supported by the language;
try directly calling accessor methods 'NZPOCOMSVR.NZPOCOMSVRClass.get_INTERFACEBLOCK()' or
'NZPOCOMSVR.NZPOCOMSVRClass.set_INTERFACEBLOCK(ref string)' "

Sorry about the misquoted reference; you are correct and thanks.

I went through the COBOL source of the COM component last night and noticed that the INTERFACEBLOCK property is in the Factory. I'm wondering if the accessor methods (which I didn't code; they are generated by COBOL...) may be outside the factory scope or something like that, rendering them invisible...(Although I thought the whole point of "factory" is to give GLOBAL scope and implement the "new" method which inherits from a Base class....again I may be misunderstanding here; the documentation is obtuse to say the least.)

As I'm now getting pretty desperate to have this working, I'm going to try moving the block out of the factory as a property, and passing it instead as a parameter to each of the methods. I'll post to this thread if it succeeds.

Meantime, can anyone shed any light on the mysterious __p1 that shows in the parameter string for the get_INTERFACEBLOCK method (see the screenshot at the link in the original mail above)

Pete.

This problem has been resolved by the actions in my post above (However, I now have serious problems with the Interop layer and I'm posting those to another thread.)

Note to anyone using Fujitsu NETCobol to build COM servers: DON'T USE FACTORY properties or methods.

Pete.