Platform SDK: CDO 1.2.1

Parent Property (All CDO Library Objects)

The Parent property returns the parent of the object. Read-only.

Syntax

Set objParent = object.Parent

Data Type

Object

Remarks

The Parent property in CDO returns the immediate parent of an object. The immediate parent for each object is shown in the following table.

CDO Library object Immediate parent in object hierarchy
AddressEntries collection AddressList
AddressEntry (returned by Session.CurrentUser) AddressEntries collection
AddressEntry (all others) Recipient
AddressEntryFilter AddressEntries collection
AddressList AddressLists collection
AddressLists collection Session
AppointmentItem Messages collection
Attachment Attachments collection
Attachments collection Message
Field Fields collection
Fields collection AddressEntry, AddressEntryFilter, AddressList, AppointmentItem, Attachment, Folder, InfoStore, Message, or MessageFilter
Folder (Inbox or Outbox) Session
Folder (all others) Folders collection or InfoStore
Folders collection Folder, including Inbox or Outbox
GroupHeader Messages collection
InfoStore InfoStores collection
InfoStores collection Session
MeetingItem Messages collection
Message Messages collection
MessageFilter Messages collection
Messages collection Folder, including Inbox or Outbox
Recipient Recipients collection
Recipients collection Message
RecurrencePattern AppointmentItem
Session Set to Nothing

The Parent property represents the immediate parent of the object, rather than the logical parent. For example, a folder contains a Messages collection, which contains Message objects. The Parent property for a message is the immediate parent, the Messages collection, rather than the logical parent, the Folder object.

The Session object represents the highest level in the hierarchy of CDO Library objects and its Parent property is set to Nothing.

For more information on the CDO Library object hierarchy, see Object Model.

The Parent property does not correspond to a MAPI property and cannot be rendered into HTML hypertext by the CDO Rendering Library. Depending on the parent object returned, you might be able to render it as an object, by setting the ObjectRenderer object's DataSource property to the object returned by the Parent property, or as a container object, by setting the ContainerRenderer object's DataSource property to the collection object returned by the Parent property. See the DataSource properties for what objects are accepted.

Example

This code fragment displays the Class of the parent Messages collection of a Message object:

' Function: Message_Parent 
Function Message_Parent() 
' error handling here ... 
If objOneMsg Is Nothing Then 
    MsgBox "Need to select a message; see Messages->Get*" 
    Exit Function 
End If 
' Immediate parent of message is the Messages collection 
MsgBox "Message immediate parent class = " & objOneMsg.Parent.Class 
' error handling code ... 
End Function 
 

To get to the Folder object, you have to take the parent of the Messages collection:

' Function: Messages_Parent 
' Purpose: Display the Messages collection Parent class value 
' See documentation topic: Parent property 
Function Messages_Parent() 
Set objMessages = objOneMsg.Parent 
' error handling here ... 
If objMessages Is Nothing Then 
    MsgBox "No Messages collection available" 
    Exit Function 
End If 
MsgBox "Messages collection parent class = " & objMessages.Parent.Class 
Exit Function 
' error handling here ... 
End Function