1. Jim Fawcett CSE775 – Distributed Objects Spring 2007
Monikers
Jim Fawcett
CSE775 – Distributed Objects
Spring 2007

2. References About the only detailed reference is:
Inside OLE, Second Edition, Kraig Brockschmidt, Microsoft Press, 1995

3. Monikers Here’s what Microsoft MSDN Library has to say about monikers:
Monikers are objects that implement the IMoniker interface and are generally implemented in DLLs as component objects. There are two ways of viewing the use of monikers: as a moniker client, a component that uses a moniker to get a pointer to another object; and as a moniker provider, a component that supplies monikers identifying its objects to moniker clients.
OLE uses monikers to connect to and activate objects, whether they are in the same machine or across a network. A very important use is for network connections. They are also used to identify, connect to, and run OLE compound document link objects. In this case, the link source acts as the moniker provider and the container holding the link object acts as the moniker client.

4. What is a Moniker?
Monikers contain the logic necessary to find a currently running object by name (CLSID, URL). They can recreate and initialize an object instance in case there is no running instance.
Monikers provide persistent encapsulated names for:
Files
Database queries
Specific range of spreadsheet cells
Each moniker binds to one specific object

5. So What is a Moniker? A Moniker is a COM object that:
Implements the IMoniker interface
Provides persistent storage for descriptive text
Knows how to:
Instantiate and/or access its object
Cause some process to act on its object
Provides a “universal” interface so clients don’t need to know the details of what it does.
Very like the way the STL iterators shield clients from container details.

6. So What is a Moniker?
In the Windows OS, a moniker is anything that implements a link, e.g.:
File associations (a specific extension is linked to an executable)
Short cuts
Bookmark to some place in a document
Link to a chart inserted in a word document

7. What is a Moniker?
A moniker is a COM object that implements the IMoniker interface, which, in turn inherits the IPersistStream Interface:
Some of its IPersistStream methods are:
IPersist: GetClassID
IPersistStream: IsDirty, Load, Save, GetSizeMax
Monikers add the methods:
Binding: BindToObject, BindToStorage
Building and Reducing Composite Monikers: Reduce, ComposeWith, Enum, Inverse, RelativePathTo
Naming: GetDisplayName, ParseDisplayName
Other methods: IsEqual, Hash, IsRunning, GetTimeOfLastChange, IsSystemMoniker

8. How are Monikers Used?
Create a COM object and initialize its state from persistant storage, as a single operaton.
Download a remote object’s server, register it, and instantiate the object, as happens with ActiveX objects on a webpage.
There are a number of System Monikers that do these kinds of operations.
System Monikers:
File monikers: reconstitute object from file
Class monikers: bind to an object’s class factory
Item monikers: bind to a part of a larger object, e.g., a range of cells in a spreadsheet.

9. Class Moniker Call CreateClassMoniker Call BindMoniker
That returns pointer to class factory
Use that to create instance
Use the instance
Class monikers are placed in the per process activation table by RegisterClassObject, used by out-proc servers to support COM activation.

10. File Moniker Call CreateFileMoniker
Call BindToObject to bind file to an object
CLSID in file, or based on file extension
FileMoniker:
creates an instance of object
Calls QueryInterface asking for IPersistFile interface and uses its Load method to initialize the object
File moniker creates an initialized object

11. Code Samples
In the code samples that follow, you will see applications of:
Class moniker
File moniker
Custom moniker

12. End of Presentation