Frequently asked question

Do I have to explicitly instantiate a singleton?

Last Published: October 1, 2025
Sometimes, when using the new keyword to instantiate a COM object, a reference to an object that already exists is returned. This happens when attempting to instantiate a singleton class that has previously been instantiated. The solution is to use the Activator class to safely wrap singleton objects in a strongly typed runtime callable wrapper (RCW), when a reference to them is first obtained.

Article ID: 000009964

Software:
  • ArcGIS Engine

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