What is the difference between keywords class and interface.

If you are referring to MS compilers, 'struct' and 'interface' are interchangeable in the way they handle regular C++. And, from a C++ point of view, a 'struct' is a 'class' with all members defaulting to 'public'.

With respect to pure C++

AFAIK, there is no keyword as Interface
There is only a keyword called class

class/struct is a mechanism to define new user defined data types (ADT)
The public member functions of the class comprise the Interface of the class


Interface is a word mostly used with respect to COM/DCOM related technologies
Again, it specifies the public member functions of the class

Amit

Refer the following link for more info

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dncomg/html/msdn_comppr.asp

Amit

Interfaces are a feature of Java, VB .NET and C#.  As the name implies, they define interfaces to functions, but not implementations.  They are typically just a set of method prototypes, though Java allows symbolic constants.  Classes are then able to implement the interface, which means they define all methods specified in the interface definition.

For example, consider the interface (not language specific)

interface ISearch{
  boolean search(int i);
}

and the class

class WidgetList implements ISearch{

// ....

  boolean search(int i){
    // define the method
  }
}

which implements the interface.  Notice that the interface only lists the prototype.  The implementation is defined in the class.  Now, an object of any class that implements the interface can be accessed by a reference to the interface.

WidgetList w = new WidgetList();

// use w

ISearch s = w;     // s is a reference to an object that implements ISearch

if (s.search(13))  {
  // ....
}

This code is able to search the object referenced by s without knowing the actual class of s, as long as the object provides the service specified in the interface ISearch.  You can also implement functions whose arguments are references to ISearch and they will accept a reference to any object that implements ISearch.

Java and C# both allow classes to implement mulltiple interfaces and allow new interfaces to be built from existing interfaces.

Unfortunately, C++ does not support interfaces directly.  However, the same result can be achieved using abstract classes that contain only pure virtual functions.

class ISearch{
  public:
    virtual boolean search(int i) = 0;
};

class WidgetList: public ISearch{

  // ....

  public:
    boolean search(int i){
      // define it
   }
};

In this case, you can use an ISearch * to point to a WidgetList object and access the search method.  Because COM/ActiveX and .NET rely heavily on interfaces, Microsoft has provided extensions to C++ to use them.  The keyword __interface is used to define an interface.  You specify the prototypes and the compiler treats them as public, pure virtual functions.  You can then inherit from them.

In the MSDN, search for "__interface keyword" or "__interface" .  Or, look for the topics

Visual Studio .NET : Developing with Visual Studio .NET : Reference : Language References : Language Equivalents : Keywords Compared in Different Languages

and

Visual Studio .NET : Visual C++ : Visual C++ Reference : C/C++ Languages : C++ Language Reference : Derived Classes : Explicit Overides : __interface   .

On the web, go to

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsintro7/html/vxoriLanguageEquivalentsKeywords.asp

or

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclang/html/vcrefinterface.asp .

What does this all mean for your C++ program and the interface in the dll.  Assuming that you are working in .NET, you can inherit from it as long as you define all methods defined in the interface.  For COM, you'll need more expertise than I can provide.

Sys_Prog:

Sorry for repeating some of what you said.  You submitted while I was typing mine up and I did not refresh before I submitted.

>>Interfaces are a feature of Java, VB .NET and C#.  

That is obviously wrong. Interfaces are a programming concept.

Sorry, it is not wrong, just a matter of semantics.  Interfaces are a programming concept and in particular are a concept of Object-Oriented programming languages.  In terms of actual Object-Oriented languages, Java, VB .NET, and C# all provide an interface mechanism and use the "interface" keyword to implement it.

COM also uses the concept of an interface to specify a set of services provided by a binary object, but not to specify the implementation of those services.  This idea comes directly from the Object-Oriented programming model.  However, since many COM aware languages do not have explicit interface mechanisms, they have to rely on other techniques to implement the interface.

Since the original question was about the use of the keyword "interface" in C++, my answer is correct that Java, VB .NET, and C# all provide interfaces with a language defined construct.  On the other hand, the C++ definition does not include an interface construct or keyword, but they can be implemented using pure virtual functions.  Microsoft does provide the __interface keyword as an extension to simplify their use in C++ with COM and .NET.