Purpose

Structured Storage provides file and data persistence in COM by handling a single file as a structured collection of objects known as storages and streams.

The purpose of Structured Storage is to reduce the performance penalties and overhead associated with storing separate objects in a single file. Structured Storage provides a solution by defining how to handle a single file entity as a structured collection of two types of objects—storages and streams—through a standard implementation called Compound Files. This enables the user to interact with, and manage, a compound file as if it were a single file rather than a nested hierarchy of separate objects.

Where Applicable

Structured Storage can be used on Microsoft COM-based operating systems.

Developer Audience

The Structured Storage documentation is intended for experienced C and C++ programmers and COM-based system developers.

Structured Storage primarily supports C and C++ programming languages, however any COM-based technology will also support any programming language that utilizes interface pointers.

A solid understanding of COM technologies is prerequisite to the developmental use of Structured Storage.

Run-Time Requirements

For more information about which operating systems are required to use a particular API element, see the Requirements section of the documentation for the element.

In This Section

See Also

The Component Object Model

Send comments about this topic to Microsoft

Build date: 11/12/2009