Can legacy code call .NET?

At our company we have some old code written using Powersoft's Power++
(a RAD C++ product). Power++ has been discontinued for quite a while
now so we don't want to use it for new projects.

We'd like to write a program in .NET that can be called by an old
program we wrote in Power++. I'm assuming it is impossible to do that
on the code level. Is there perhaps another way that a legacy .dll
or .exe can call functionality in a .NET assembly?

Usually all the stuff I see on the internet is about .NET code calling
legacy code. And even then, it seems like it is calling .COM stuff or
unmanaged Visual C++ code.

Dick
Thu Mar 13 18:09:25 CDT 2008

You can expose .NET functions via COM, then call that COM code from your
legacy application.

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.

Cowboy
Fri Mar 14 11:08:56 CDT 2008

There are two potential methods I can think of off hand:

1. If the legacy app can adhere to COM standards, you can make a COM
callable wrapper around the .NET assembly and call that way

2. If not, you can wrap the .NET funcationality in a service and call the
service (Not sure how with POWER++, of course, if no SOAP functionality, you
will end up with a socket call)

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP, MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA

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"clintonb" <cbast2@centurytel.net> wrote in message
news:14a9e9f7-ae08-443a-bf5e-d160db63ac52@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> At our company we have some old code written using Powersoft's Power++
> (a RAD C++ product). Power++ has been discontinued for quite a while
> now so we don't want to use it for new projects.
>
> We'd like to write a program in .NET that can be called by an old
> program we wrote in Power++. I'm assuming it is impossible to do that
> on the code level. Is there perhaps another way that a legacy .dll
> or .exe can call functionality in a .NET assembly?
>
> Usually all the stuff I see on the internet is about .NET code calling
> legacy code. And even then, it seems like it is calling .COM stuff or
> unmanaged Visual C++ code.
>

Thomas
Fri Mar 14 21:34:48 CDT 2008

> Is there perhaps another way that a legacy .dll
> or .exe can call functionality in a .NET assembly?


with C++/CLI (in VS2005+2008)
you can mix managed- & unmanaged C++,
or build an assembly exposing a native (C/C++/Win32) DLL API.

Or use it for building a native wrapper for C#/VB.NET assemblies.



--
Thomas Scheidegger - 'NETMaster'
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_dotnet.html - http://dnetmaster.net/