Patent ID: 8296730

Claim:
A method of calling a Component Object Model (COM) object comprising: receiving a call to a method of the COM object from a calling program written in a managed programming language that supports extension methods, using a loosely-typed interface or using a strongly-typed interface comprising a method with at least one loosely-typed parameter; determining an extension method associated with the called method of the COM object, the extension method providing a strongly-typed method overload for a strongly-typed equivalent of the loosely-typed interface or providing a strongly-typed equivalent of the extension method with the at least one loosely-typed parameter; declaring an additional type for the COM object within the extension method, the additional type different than an existing type included in the method, wherein the declaring facilitates an enforcement of type safety for the COM object at compile time, the enforcement comprising a search for at least one additional type declared in the extension method; executing the extension method; and returning a result of executing the extension method to the calling program.