COM Type Provider for F#

The COM Type Provider provides a new way to do COM interop from F#. It allows you to access COM components directly from F# projects and scripts without adding any references other than the type provider itself.

Visual Studio Intellisense Sample

One advantage of this method is that you can author and deploy F# scripts without having to pre-generate the interop assemblies. Another advantage is that you can easily explore all the COM components installed on your machine via intellisense.

The Com Type Provider can be installed from NuGet:

PM> Install-Package FSharp.ComProvider -Pre

Sample

Here is a simple script that uses COM to launch a Windows Explorer window:

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#r "FSharp.ComProvider.dll"

type Shell = TypeLib.``Microsoft Shell Controls And Automation``.``1.0``

let shell = Shell.ShellClass()
shell.Explore(@"C:\")

If you're writing compiling to an assembly, you'll want to include the STAThread attribute on your entry function for proper COM functionality:

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[<EntryPoint>]
[<STAThread>]
let main argv =
    let shell = Shell.ShellClass()
    shell.Explore(@"C:\")
    0

Contributing and license

The project is hosted on GitHub where you can report issues, fork the project and submit pull requests. If you're adding new public API, please also consider adding samples that can be turned into a documentation. You might also want to read library design notes to understand how it works.

The library is available under a public domain license, which allows modification and redistribution for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. For more information see the License file in the GitHub repository.

namespace System

type Shell =
  nested type .DShellFolderViewEvents_Event
  nested type .DShellFolderViewEvents_EventProvider
  nested type DFConstraint
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents_BeginDragEventHandler
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents_DefaultVerbInvokedEventHandler
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents_EnumDoneEventHandler
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents_SelectionChangedEventHandler
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents_SinkHelper
  nested type DShellFolderViewEvents_VerbInvokedEventHandler
  ...

Full name: Index.Shell

namespace TypeLib

val shell : Shell.ShellClass

Full name: Index.shell

type ShellClass =
  inherit __ComObject
  interface IShellDispatch6
  interface IShellDispatch5
  interface IShellDispatch4
  interface IShellDispatch3
  interface IShellDispatch2
  interface IShellDispatch
  interface Shell
  new : unit -> ShellClass
  member AddToRecent : varFile: obj * ?bstrCategory: string -> unit
  ...

Full name: Index.Shell.ShellClass

Shell.ShellClass.Explore(vDir: obj) : unit

Multiple items
type EntryPointAttribute =
inherit Attribute
new : unit -> EntryPointAttribute

Full name: Microsoft.FSharp.Core.EntryPointAttribute

--------------------
new : unit -> EntryPointAttribute

Multiple items
type STAThreadAttribute =
inherit Attribute
new : unit -> STAThreadAttribute

Full name: System.STAThreadAttribute

--------------------
STAThreadAttribute() : unit

val main : argv:string [] -> int

Full name: Index.main

val argv : string []

val shell : Shell.ShellClass