[Ace-users] [tao-users] Making use of TAO IDL compiler

[Jeff Parsons]

Hi,

The linked paper is on the use of patterns to implement
AMI in TAO. I skimmed the paper quickly - if there are
any references to the IDL compiler in it, they are not
very significant ;-).

Jeff 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: schmidt at dre.vanderbilt.edu [mailto:schmidt at dre.vanderbilt.edu] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 10:14 AM
> To: jtc at acorntoolworks.com; Jeff Parsons
> Cc: tao-users at cse.wustl.edu
> Subject: Re: [tao-users] Making use of TAO IDL compiler
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> There is a paper we wrote about the patterns used in the TAO 
> IDL compiler to support multiple backend pluggins. The 
> patterns include Visitor, Abstract Factory, and Strategy. I 
> think the paper is available at
> 
> www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/PDF/ami2.pdf
> 
> If this isn't the right paper I will find the right one when 
> I am done with holiday travels today!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Doug
> Sent from my BlackBerry(r) wireless device
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jtc at acorntoolworks.com (J.T. Conklin)
> 
> Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:02:50 
> To:"Jeff Parsons" <j.parsons at vanderbilt.edu>
> Cc:tao-users at cse.wustl.edu
> Subject: Re: [tao-users] Making use of TAO IDL compiler
> 
> 
> "Jeff Parsons" <j.parsons at vanderbilt.edu> writes:
> > Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by 'pluggable
> > back end support' for the TAO IDL compiler, but there
> > are already several backend generator libraries used
> > with the same frontend parser library and driver executable.
> > In the TAO distribution, please see
> > TAO_ROOT/orbsvcs/IFR_Service where, in addition to the IFR
> > Service executable, there are files to build an IFR loader
> > backend for the IDL compiler. In the CIAO distribution,
> > there is a backend in CIAO_ROOT/tools/IDL3_to_IDL2 that
> > converts IDL containing component and home declarations
> > into the equivalent 'implied IDL'. Other backends can
> > be found in the CoSMIC toolsuite distribution that convert
> > IDL into PICML, our component system modeling language,
> > and WSDL (Web Services Definition Language).
> 
> Hi Jeff,
> 
> While I was aware that the IDL compiler and IFR used the same front
> end with different back end libraries, I wasn't aware that there were
> so many other back ends. Also I'm looking at the current sources, and
> I'm not seeing the use of the tao_idl driver executable; it appears
> tao_ifr links the driver, front end, and back end libraries together.
> And the TAO_IFR_Loader appears to be service config object (to be used
> with TAO_Service, etc.), which is the dynamically loaded equivalent of
> the IFR_Service server.  To the best I can tell, it doesn't act on IDL
> (The IFR_Server library isn't linked with any of the TAO_IDL 
> libraries).
>  
> However, the multiple back ends suggests that TAO's IDL compiler may
> be much farther along towards what I was meaning by "pluggins".
> 
> It's my understanding that the OmniORB IDL compiler you can specify a
> back end on the command line, and that back end will be used when
> compiling the IDL.  The OmniORB back ends are written in python, which
> makes things a bit easier.  I vaguely recall reading docs for one of
> the commercial ORBs (Orbix?) that had a similar capability where the
> plugins were writtin in something like tcl.
> 
> For TAO, I was imagining the backend interface being a dynamically
> loaded library loaded by the driver.  A somewhat higher barrier to
> entry than python or tcl, but still very usable.
> 
>     --jtc
> 
> -- 
> J.T. Conklin
> 
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