CORBA-4GL

CORBA for 4th Generation Languages

CORBA-4GL is a framework for accessing CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) objects from Interactive Data Language (IDL), a product of Research Systems Inc. (RSI) IDL^TM and accessing IDL objects from other languages via CORBA.

Correspondingly, CORBA-4GL consists of two bridges: IDL-CORBA and CORBA-IDL.

IDL-CORBA
IDL-CORBA allows you to expose remote CORBA objects, implemented in languages such as C++, Java or Python, as local IDL objects for use in visualization and analysis. This bridge uses the Dynamic Invocation Interface of CORBA (DII). Each CORBA object is registered within IDL and delegates requests to the bridge. At each invocation, the bridge checks the syntax of the request, packages IDL variables into CORBA "Any" and invokes the remote method. Finally, IDL-CORBA transforms the variables back into IDL variables. Currently, IDL-CORBA supports all scalar variables, strings and multidimensional arrays.

CORBA-IDL
Using the CORBA Dynamic Skeleton Interface (DSI), CORBA-IDL packages and sends requests from a client written in a difference language to IDL. Using Callable IDL, the requests are then executed by IDL objects, and the results are translated back into the client environment.

Requirements
CORBA-4GL is offered in source code form only and designed to work on the major Unix variants using recent versions of the gcc compiler. Certified ORBs include TAO, the Ace ORB. Currently, we recommend using gcc 3.3 to build both ACE+TAO and CORBA-4GL.

For additional information or to arrange a demonstration of CORBA-4GL, please contact sales@txcorp.com.

  Notes on IDL-CORBA Bridge (PDF)

Download CORBA-4GL (client component only).