What is the different purpose of .H header file and a IDL file?

Posted by smwikipedia on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by smwikipedia
Published on 2010-04-12T17:30:44Z Indexed on 2010/04/12 17:33 UTC
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I am studying COM so there're some basic questions puzzling me...

I know that IDL file is used to describe the method definitions (or the so called 'contract' between software modules), and the .H header files contains something like a method prototype, which looks similar to what the IDL is meant for. So, why are these two things coexist? Isn't one enough?

Many thanks.

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