Adapter capabilities

The following capabilities exist for the COM Automation adapter:

• A card (or GET or PUT rule) represents all or part of an IDL.
• Objects created in one card can be used as parameters to methods in subsequent calls. These objects must be created by invoking an operation that returns an object.
• Reference labels identify objects. Objects that are returned from method calls are assigned a label by the adapter. This label is of the form Ref.nn, where nn is a number which uniquely identifies the object.
• The return values of any of the methods can be returned from a GET call. The IDL importer provides a mechanism allowing the user to select which methods the return values should be provided for. These return values can be primitive types (for example, int), strings, arrays, or local or remote objects. In the case of remote objects, the reference label is returned so that the object can be used in a subsequent call.
• The adapter provides GET and PUT methods, which are invoked by the Resource Manager when the adapter is being invoked as an output.