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VARIANT data type

VARIANT data type described below is recognized by most development environments. It is used by DInsight software to communicate with Development Environments which do not recognize IUnknown data type.

VARIANT is self-descriptive type. The vt member indicates which type of the data is being transmitted and which union member contains it. See below for details. In this release DG Kernel component only uses VT_UNKNOWN ( punkVal member ) type.

This is  how the VARIANT type is described in Microsoft SDK documentation:

typedef struct FARSTRUCT tagVARIANT VARIANT;

typedef struct tagVARIANT  {
   VARTYPE vt;
   unsigned short wReserved1;
   unsigned short wReserved2;
   unsigned short wReserved3;
   union {
      Byte                    bVal;                 // VT_UI1.
      Short                   iVal;                 // VT_I2.
      long                    lVal;                 // VT_I4.
      float                   fltVal;               // VT_R4.
      double                  dblVal;               // VT_R8.
      VARIANT_BOOL            boolVal;              // VT_BOOL.
      SCODE                   scode;                // VT_ERROR.
      CY                      cyVal;                // VT_CY.
      DATE                    date;                 // VT_DATE.
      BSTR                    bstrVal;              // VT_BSTR.
      DECIMAL                 FAR* pdecVal          // VT_BYREF|VT_DECIMAL.
      IUnknown                FAR* punkVal;         // VT_UNKNOWN.
      IDispatch               FAR* pdispVal;        // VT_DISPATCH.
      SAFEARRAY               FAR* parray;          // VT_ARRAY|*.
      Byte                    FAR* pbVal;           // VT_BYREF|VT_UI1.
      short                   FAR* piVal;           // VT_BYREF|VT_I2.
      long                    FAR* plVal;           // VT_BYREF|VT_I4.
      float                   FAR* pfltVal;         // VT_BYREF|VT_R4.
      double                  FAR* pdblVal;         // VT_BYREF|VT_R8.
      VARIANT_BOOL            FAR* pboolVal;        // VT_BYREF|VT_BOOL.
      SCODE                   FAR* pscode;          // VT_BYREF|VT_ERROR.
      CY                      FAR* pcyVal;          // VT_BYREF|VT_CY.
      DATE                    FAR* pdate;           // VT_BYREF|VT_DATE.
      BSTR                    FAR* pbstrVal;        // VT_BYREF|VT_BSTR.
      IUnknown                FAR* FAR* ppunkVal;   // VT_BYREF|VT_UNKNOWN.
      IDispatch               FAR* FAR* ppdispVal;  // VT_BYREF|VT_DISPATCH.
      SAFEARRAY               FAR* FAR* pparray;    // VT_ARRAY|*.
      VARIANT                 FAR* pvarVal;         // VT_BYREF|VT_VARIANT.
      void                    FAR* byref;           // Generic ByRef.
      char                    cVal;                 // VT_I1.
      unsigned short          uiVal;                // VT_UI2.
      unsigned long           ulVal;                // VT_UI4.
      int                     intVal;               // VT_INT.
      unsigned int            uintVal;              // VT_UINT.
      char FAR *              pcVal;                // VT_BYREF|VT_I1.
      unsigned short FAR *    puiVal;               // VT_BYREF|VT_UI2.
      unsigned long FAR *     pulVal;               // VT_BYREF|VT_UI4.
      int FAR *               pintVal;              // VT_BYREF|VT_INT.
      unsigned int FAR *      puintVal;             //VT_BYREF|VT_UINT.
   };
};

The vt value governs the interpretation of the union as follows: