An Active Directory container object is an Active Directory Object that contains other COM objects. An Active Directory object is created and managed through its parent container object. The containment relationship is defined through an Active Directory object's schema class object which provides on-line run-time definitions of what types of objects can be created within a specific container.
Containers are different from collections. Containers control the objects within them, providing methods to create, filter, retrieve, copy, move and delete them. Collections represent arbitrary sets of items and provide methods to filter and manipulate the sets.
Container objects are used frequently when representing any hierarchical structure such as a directory tree. Container objects are used for the nodes in the directory tree that can be expanded to further levels of the tree for a directory instance.
Container objects occur throughout the Active Directory architecture as a natural consequence of the hierarchical nature of directory services. For example, the top-level container object in Active Directory is the ADSI Namespaces Object that contains an ADSI Namespace Object for every Active Directory provider.
Note Calling IADs::GetInfo and IADs::SetInfo, the caching routines for an object's properties, does not affect the objects stored in a container. Calling Get/SetInfo affects the properties of the container object, not the objects it manages.
| Interfaces on ADSI Container Object | Description |
|---|---|
| IUnknown | Universal COM object management and interface query methods. |
| IDispatch | Automation methods for late-bound access to an object's methods and properties |
| IADs | Standard Active Directory object management methods. |
| IADsContainer | Object and persistent property management and enumeration methods. |
Windows NT: Use version 4.0 and later.
IADs, IADsContainer, ADSI Object