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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="VirtualBoxAPI">
  <title><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> Programming Interfaces</title>
  
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    <p><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> comes with comprehensive support for third-party developers. The so-called <i>Main API</i> of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> exposes the entire feature set of the virtualization engine. It is completely documented and available to anyone who wants to control <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> programmatically.</p>
    <p>The Main API is made available to C++ clients through COM on Windows hosts or XPCOM on other hosts. Bridges also exist for SOAP, Java and Python.</p>
    <p>All programming information such as documentation, reference information, header and other interface files, as well as samples have been split out to a separate <b outputclass="bold">Software Development Kit (SDK)</b>. The SDK is available for download from <ph>http://www.virtualbox.org</ph>. In particular, the SDK comes with a Programming Guide and Reference manual in PDF format.</p>
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