PocoCapsule is an Inversion of Control (IoC) container, a.k.a Dependency Injection (DI) framework (see article IoC vs DI), as well as a Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) engine (see article DSM in IoC). The main goals of PocoCapsule are to support declarative assemblying/deploying/configuring of component-based C/C++ applications and also to provide a platform that can easily be used even by domain users to quickly build other component frameworks in a descriptive modeling approach.

• PocoCapsule is non-invasive and enforces neither a proprietary component programming model (such as their base classes or a set of pre-defined methods) nor any component-container couplings (such as registry or context lookup). It accepts container-agnostic plain-old C/C++ objects (POCO) as components. Examples of such components include instances of arbitrary C++ classes, template classes (such as all STL container classes), K&R structs, arrays, and even functions (as function pointers).

• PocoCapsule supports almost all useful IoC invocation scenarios regardless the numbers of their value/reference inject arguments (in various types, aggregated types, and even user defined types). These invocations include:
• Constructors (and destructors in lifecycle control) of arbitrary C++ classes/structs/unions/arrays.
• Global C or C++ functions, operators, and variables.
• Non-static member functions and operators of C++ classes/structs.
• Static member functions of C++ classes/structs.
• Non-static data members of C++ classes/structs.
• Static data members of C++ classes/structs.
• Union field accesses.
• Array (as well as C++ classes/structs with index operator) indexed accesses.

• PocoCapsule supports component lifecycle control with any of the following methods specified by user:
• constructors of C++ classes/structs/unions/arrays
• global or static factory methods
• non-static factory methods of factory-beans
• global or static ref duplicate methods
• non-static duplicate methods of the beans themselves
• global or static ref release/destroy methods (and destructors)
• non-static ref release/destroy methods of destroy-beans.
• non-static release/destroy methods of the beans themselves.

• PocoCapsule ensures type safety. All type conversions are validated statically in building dynamic invocation proxies. The dynamic reflection engine only uses proxies that exactly match the signatures of IoC invocations.

• PocoCapsule supports dynamic wiring that allows application to be deployed without immediately being wired with dependent services. These services can be wired or rewired to applications transparently after or upon they (these services) become available or being replaced.

• PocoCapsule seamlessly supports user-defined domain specific modeling schemas through model transformations. These DSM schemas describe applications architectures at higher abstraction levels. This mechanism not only largely avoids problems of the verbose, error-prone, and primitive core IoC schema but also makes the PocoCapsule a framework that can be used by domain users to quickly and easily build other user-defined or committee-designed component frameworks. Several such DSM frameworks are presented in PocoCapsule out-of-the-box or from third parties, such as:
• PocoCapsule for WebServices: supports wiring and deployment of component-based WebServices applications. It also includes an implementation of the OpenSOA's SCA (now OASIS OpenCSA) assembly container (SCA as a DSM). See the article and examples.
• PocoCapsule for robotic systems: supports wiring and configuring of robotic component applications. It also includes an assembly model for OMG-RTC applications. See the article and examples in user-defined component model and OMG-RTC component model.
• PocoCapsule for SDR: supports wiring and configuring of software defined radio (SDR) waveform applications. It also includes an implementation of the assembly container of JTRS-SCA core framework (CF). See the article and examples in both non-CORBA non-JTRS-SCA models and JTRS-SCA (CF) component and assembly models.
• PocoCapsule for OMG-DDS: A deployment model for component based OMG Data Distribution Service (OMG-DDS) applications. See the example.
• PocoCapsule for CORBA: (available from Pocomatic Software) supports assembly and deployment of component-based CORBA server and OMG-Event/Notification applications. See examples

• PocoCapsule is portable to almost all Unix/Windows and realtime embedded operating systems (such as VxWorks and Symbian OS). The 1.0 source code can be built on Linux, Solaris, Windows, and VxWorks out-of-the-box.