What is the TCPBridge?

The TCPBridge is an ActiveX® COM component. ActiveX controls are among the many types of components that use Microsoft COM™ technologies to provide interoperability with other types of COM components and services. In the EsiObjects environment, the TCPBridge allows for interoperability between a COM host such as Visual Basic and an EsiObjects server.

Once connected, the VB programmer can access the Broker object within the TCPBridge control. The Broker object routes requests from the client to the server. Proxies are used to invoke operations on objects within the EsiObjects server. A VB Proxy object maps to a server object. Operations invoked on the proxy are sent, via the broker, to the server object. The operation is executed on that object, and any result is returned back to the proxy.

The TCPBridge is actually made up of several components that allow for efficient and specialized services to the server. These components are all described in the TCP Bridge Programmer’s Guide document, which is included in the EsiObjects Client Kit. Using the TCPBridge, a COM component or service can connect to the EsiObjects server and have access to the basic services in EsiObjects: object creation, object destruction, operations on methods, properties, and relationships, events and more.