Aggregation is the object reuse mechanism in which the outer object exposes interfaces from the inner object as if they were implemented on the outer object itself. This is useful when the outer object delegates every call to one of its interfaces to the same interface in the inner object. Aggregation is available as a convenience to avoid extra implementation overhead in the outer object in this case. Aggregation is actually a specialized case of containment/delegation.
Aggregation is almost as simple to implement as containment is, except for the three IUnknown functions: QueryInterface, AddRef, and Release. The catch is that from the client's perspective, any IUnknown function on the outer object must affect the outer object. That is, AddRef and Release affect the outer object and QueryInterface exposes all the interfaces available on the outer object. However, if the outer object simply exposes an inner object's interface as its own, that inner object's IUnknown members called through that interface will behave differently than those IUnknown members on the outer object's interfaces, an absolute violation of the rules and properties governing IUnknown.
The solution is that aggregation requires an explicit implementation of IUnknown on the inner object and delegation of the IUnknown methods of any other interface to the outer object's IUnknown methods.
Creating objects that can be aggregated is optional; however, it is simple to do and provides significant benefits. The following rules apply to creating an aggregable object:
内部对象的对IUnkown的这三个实现必须自己控制自己。
内部对象对别的接口的这三个实现,不能控制自己,应交给外部对象处理。
内部对象一定不能调用Addref当拥有一个对外部IUNKODWN的指针。
当对象创建时,如果不是IUnkown,则报错。
The following code fragment illustrates a correct implementation of an aggregable object by using the nested class method of implementing interfaces: