createInstance vs createInstanceWithArguments

[ZevSpitz]

I am trying to generate Typescript definitions from the LibreOffice IDL (via Doxygen-generated XML).

The XMultiServiceFactory interface has two methods for creating instances: createInstance and createInstanceWithArguments. However, I can’t seem to find which types require arguments and what they are, and which types don’t require arguments.

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This would be of great value in creating these definitions, because Typescript supports multiple overloads based on different values of string parameters. For example, given the following definitions:

namespace com.sun.star {
    namespace lang {
        interface ServiceManager extends XMultiServiceFactory { }
        interface XMultiServiceFactory {
            createInstance('com.sun.star.frame.theDesktop'): com.sun.star.frame.theDesktop;
        }
    ]
    namespace frame {
        interface theDesktop {
            // members defined here
        }
    }
}

// This is using the Automation bridge, but the definitions could be written just as easily
// for Javascript macros running via the Rhino interpreter
interface ActiveXObject {
    new(progid: 'com.sun.star.ServiceManager'): com.sun.star.lang.ServiceManager;
}

Typescript will recognize the appropriate types:

// automatically typed as com.sun.star.lang.ServiceManager
let objServiceManager = new ActiveXObject('com.sun.star.ServiceManager');

// automatically typed as com.sun.star.frame.theDesktop
let desktop = objServiceManager.createInstance('com.sun.star.frame.theDesktop');

and will issue errors when trying to use a method via desktop that isn’t available on the theDesktop singleton:

// will fail compilation
desktop.badMethod();

The alternative is to explicitly cast values to the appropriate type:

let desktop = objServiceManager.createInstance('com.sun.star.frame.theDesktop') as com.sun.star.frame.theDesktop;

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How can I know from the documentation whether a given type needs arguments or not, and what those arguments are?

LibreOffice 5.3.5

Windows 10 64-bit