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

[Douglas C. Schmidt]

Hi Folks,

> 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 ;-).

Sorry, I was "off-by-one" - please see

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/PDF/ami1.pdf

for the article that discusses hw the TAO IDL compiler backend can be
extended to generate different sorts of stuff.

Thanks,

Doug

> 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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> >