Create COM object using plain C

Question

According to MSDN documentation, you can create a COM object to access internet explorer like this in VB;

Dim IE As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer

Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

As far as I know, COM object supposed to be language independent. Therefore, I think it should be possible to do this in plain C (Not C++).

How can I create any COM object using plain C on Windows operating system?

Answer 1

After some research, I solved my problem like this;

#include <windows.h>

#define COBJMACROS
#include <exdisp.h>

int WINAPI wWinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, PWSTR pCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{

    if (SUCCEEDED(OleInitialize(NULL)))
    {
       IWebBrowser2*    pBrowser2;

       CoCreateInstance(&CLSID_InternetExplorer, NULL, CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER, 
                           &IID_IWebBrowser2, (void**)&pBrowser2);
       if (pBrowser2)
       {
           BSTR bstrURL = SysAllocString(L"http://www.google.com");
           HRESULT hr;
           VARIANT vEmpty;


           VariantInit(&vEmpty);

           hr = IWebBrowser2_Navigate(pBrowser2, bstrURL, &vEmpty, &vEmpty, &vEmpty, &vEmpty);
           if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
           {
               IWebBrowserApp_put_Visible(pBrowser2,VARIANT_TRUE);
           }
           else
           {
               IWebBrowser2_Quit(pBrowser2);
           }

           SysFreeString(bstrURL);
           IWebBrowser_Release(pBrowser2);
       }

       OleUninitialize();
    }

}

ExpDisp.h header file from Windows SDK contains internet explorer's COM interface. Moreover, it contains macros to easily call methods.