InterfaceTypeAttribute Class

You can apply this attribute to interfaces.

By default, the Tlbexp.exe (Type Library Exporter) exposes a managed interface to COM as a dual interface, giving you the flexibility of late binding or the performance of early binding. The ComInterfaceType enumeration enables you to override the default behavior and specify late binding only or early binding only. For example, you can apply InterfaceType (ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIDispatch) to an interface to produce metadata to restrict callers to late binding only. Although interfaces that derive from the IDispatch interface are often dual, the InterfaceIsIDispatch enumeration member allows only late-bound calls to the interface methods. This attribute has no effect on the managed view of the interface. For additional information on how interfaces are exposed to COM, see Exported Type Conversion.

The Tlbimp.exe (Type Library Importer) also applies this attribute to imported, nondual interfaces; it applies the appropriate enumeration member to indicate that the interface is dispatch-only or IUnknown -only.

The following example shows how InterfaceTypeAttribute controls how the interface is exposed to COM.

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

//Interface is exposed to COM as dual. 
interface IMyInterface1 
{
    //Insert code here.
}

//Interface is exposed to COM as IDispatch.
[InterfaceTypeAttribute(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIDispatch)]
interface IMyInterface2 
{
    //Insert code here.
}

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Portable Class Library

.NET for Windows Store apps

Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core Role not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core Role supported with SP1 or later; Itanium not supported)

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

Reference

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