Introducing .NET 4.0: with Visual Studio 2010

3.4. Improved COM Interoperability

Many of the language enhancements we have looked at so far can greatly ease working with legacy code such as COM objects.

Let's look in more detail by adapting an example from Scott Hansleman's blog (www.hanselman.com/blog/CLRAndDLRAndBCLOhMyWhirlwindTourAroundNET4AndVisualStudio2010Beta1.aspx).

In Scott's example, the Microsoft Office API is used to open an existing text file. To see this example, add the following code and a reference to Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word, and then take a look at the IntelliSense for the Open() method (see Figure 3-1):

using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word; var WordApplication = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application(); WordApplication.Visible = true; object missing = System.Reflection.Missing.Value; ...