Calling unmanaged C++ COM Objects from C#

Question

I was reading this MSDN article which deals with creating a .NET managed wrapper around a COM object. They mention two approaches, either to auto-generate the wrapper using tlbimp, or manually to create a C# interface and dummy class.

But what about in our case where we have an ODL file containing a COM Interface declaration (we don't use any type libraries), which on the C++ side is compiled by the IDL compiler? Is there no way the ODL file can be used directly by .NET? Or in this case do we still have to use one of the approaches mentioned in the article?

Answer 1

I don't think you'll be able to use the ODL file directly: you can generate a type library from an ODL file and then give that type library to tlbimp.exe.