|
The last release was 2.8.0 (31st August 1999).
Latest source code is available via anonymous CVS. Please see:
If you have an existing build of omniORB3, you must "make
veryclean" or remove the tree and start again.
NOTE the new section about omniidl and Python below!!!
Introduction
This version of omniORB incorporates a major re-write of the core runtime.
Key features include:
- support for the Portable Object Adapter (POA)
- support for the Interoperable Naming Service (INS)
- new IDL compiler
- identical semantics for local and remote object invocations
- location forwarding into and out of the local address space
- new dynamically growing object table (improves performance
for applications with large numbers of objects)
- legacy support for the BOA (including using both BOA and POA
together in the same process)
- improved message logging, including logging application
level requests and throwing of system exceptions
- lots of other stuff
Changes since 2.8.0
- Support for the Portable Object Adapter (POA)
The following features are not implemented:
- PortableServer::Current
- DSI is incomplete (depends on Current).
- Support for the Interoperable Naming Service. See chapter 4 of
the omniORB manual for details.
- New IDL compiler
omniidl2 has been replaced by a new general-purpose IDL
compiler simply named omniidl. This has several important
consequences:
- omniidl requires Python 1.5.2 to build and run.
We recommend that you use a full Python installation,
but we have made minimal binary versions for Windows,
Solaris and Linux available at:
ftp://ftp.uk.research.att.com/pub/omniORB/python/
You must point the makefiles to your Python
installation. See
README.unix or
README.win32 for
details.
- If you move omniidl out of the omniORB tree, it
may be unable to find Python files which it
requires. In this case, either use the -p flag
to give the full path to the lib/python directory,
or set the PYTHONPATH environment variable to
contain that location.
- omniidl aims for strict compliance to the IDL
specification. You may find that some IDL which used
to pass omniidl2 now has compilation errors.
- omniidl's command-line flags are different. Use
omniidl -bcxx -u
for the full list.
In particular, where before you said:
omniidl2 echo.idl
to generate the basic stubs and skeletons, you must
now say:
omniidl -bcxx echo.idl
(The -bcxx tells the compiler to use the C++
back-end. If you have omniORBpy installed, you can
also say -bpython to generate Python stubs.)
There are several new general (non backend-specific)
omniidl arguments:
| omniidl flag | Meaning |
|---|
| -N | Do not run preprocessor |
| -b<backend> | Select a back-end to be used.
(More than one permitted.) |
| -nf | Do not warn about unresolved forward
declarations |
| -k | Comments after declarations are kept for the
back-ends |
| -K | Comments before declarations are kept for the
back-ends |
| -Cdir | Change directory to dir before writing output |
| -d | Dump the parsed IDL then exit |
| -pdir | Path to omniidl back-ends ($TOP/lib/python) |
The omniidl2 flag -t has been replaced by two new
C++ backend options (these are equivalent to the
omniidl3 flags, -tp and -tf):
| -Wbtp | produce tie implementation skeletons |
| -Wbtf | generate flattened tie implementation skeletons |
The latter is needed if on your platform modules are
mapped to C++ classes, and your compiler does not
support template members of classes.
Some C++ backend arguments have been renamed:
| -Wbh=<suffix> | Specify suffix for generated header
files (was -h suffix) |
| -Wbs=<suffix> | Specify suffix for generated stub
files (was -s suffix) |
| -Wba | Generate code for TypeCodes and Any (was -a) |
| -WbF | Generate code fragments (for expert only) (was
-F) |
| -Wbold_prefix | Map C++ reserved words with prefix _
(was -c) |
There are some new C++ backend arguments
with no omniidl2 equivalents:
| -Wbboa | generate BOA skeletons (_sk_foo).
By default only POA skeletons are
generated. (equivalent to -Bboa in
omniidl3) |
| -Wbold | use pre CORBA 2.2 mapping
for skeleton operations
(equivalent to -Bold_signatures in
omniidl3) |
| -Wbd=suffix | changes the DynSK.cc file suffix |
| -Wbsplice-modules | Splice together multiply opened
modules into one (used to be the
default in omniidl2- see below) |
| -Wbexample | Generate example implementation code |
| -Wbkeep_inc_path | Preserves IDL #include path
in generated C++ header
| | -Wbuse_quotes | Uses "" rather than <> in C++ header
#includes |
To generate the old-style (BOA compatible) tie
skeletons you must supply both the -Wbboa and -Wbtf
flags.
Note that omniidl2 would always splice reopened
modules together (regardless of the -m flag). omniidl
defaults to reopening modules- if your compiler does
not support this then you must use the option
"-Wbsplice-modules" to regain the old behaviour.
- The make rules for omniidl have not been tested
on all platforms (since we don't have access to
them). If you encounter build difficulties on
your platform, please look at
src/tool/omniidl/cxx/dir.mk to see if it is
obvious how to fix it.
- IDL stubs.
There are a number of improvements. You may find that the
size of the stub code generated is smaller.
The stubs must be regenerated with the new IDL compiler to be
compatible with the runtime library.
- New mapping for signatures of operations in skeletons.
The mapping for the arguments to operations in implementation
skeletons changed in the spec between versions 2.1 and 2.2.
You are now required to use T_out types (where applicable) for
'out' arguments.
This may mean that you have to modify your object implementations.
However the old signatures can still be used by passing the
-Wbold flag to omniidl.
- New command line options and ORB configuration variables:
- -ORBtraceInvocations,
omniORB::traceInvocations-
enable tracing of invocations of CORBA objects.
- -ORBpoa_iiop_port <port number>-
tells the POA the port number to use.
- -ORBpoa_iiop_name_port <hostname
[:port number]>-
tells the POA the hostname and optionally the port
number to use.
NB. The BOA and POA will both use the same port if
used together.
- omniORB::objectTableSize-
The default value is zero, and indicates that
omniORB should grow the object table as necassary.
It is recommended that you use this facility.
Setting another value sets a fixed size for the
object table, thus eliminating the overhead of
resizing the table if you know in advance the
likely number of objects. Since an open hash table
is used, performance does not suffer disasterously
if this number of objects is exceeded.
If set, this value must be modified before calling
CORBA::ORB_init()
- omniORB::poaHoldRequestTimeout-
If a POA is in the HOLDING state, then this value
gives the number of seconds after which the POA
will timeout and throw a TRANSIENT exception to the
client (if the POA is not transitioned to another
state).
The default is zero, which indicates no timeout.
- Shared runtime version number change
On various unices:
libomniORB3.so ---> libomniORB3.so.0 --> libomniORB3.so.0.0
On IBM AIX:
libomniORB30.a
libomniDynamic30.a
On Windows NT/95, the omniORB runtime DLLs for this version
are:
libomniORB300_rt.dll
libomniORB300_rt.lib
libomniDynamic300_rt.dll
libomniDynamic300_rt.lib
Make sure you update your Visual Studio to pick up the right
library.
- Updated user manual.
- Fixed assignment to an element of a sequence of string and a
sequence of object reference. Previous version does not work
if the compiler does not do the obvious optimisation. Only
DEC v5.6 C++ compiler is known to be affected by this bug.
- Client side call timeout now works on Windows NT and HPUX
11.00.
- COMM_FAILURE exception propagated from the server side will be
reported as an exception to the application. This allows the
invocation code to distinguish between transport problems and
COMM_FAILURE propagated from the server side.
- Update omkdepend and the various win32 wrappers for Cygwin's
new "mounts v2" registry subtree. Old Gnuwin32 mounts should
still work.
- The member function CORBA::ORB::NP_destroy() is deprecated. Use
CORBA::ORB::destroy() instead.
- Location Forwarding.
A new omniORB specific exception omniORB::LOCATION_FORWARD is
included. This may be thrown from an object implementation to
indicate to the client that the request should be re-directed
to another object.
For portability you are better off using
PortableServer::ForwardRequest within a ServantManager.
However omniORB::LOCATION_FORWARD is more flexible, since it
can be thrown from any object implementation.
See include/omniORB3/omniORB.h
- Logging and omniORB::traceLevel.
All omniORB log messages are now prefixed with 'omniORB:' to make
it easy to separate omniORB messages from other messages that
might be generated by an application.
omniORB log messages are now emitted atomically (wrt fprintf()),
which ensures that parts of omniORB log messages will never be
interleaved.
A new logging class is used internally for generating log
messages, omniORB::log. This may be useful for generating
messages in application programs. In this case a different
prefix from the default can be specified.
It is possible for the ORB to emit a log message each time a
CORBA operation is invoked on a local or remote object. See the
section on command line options and configuration variables.
A log message is now written whenever a system exception is thrown
from the omniORB runtime. For example:
omniORB: throw COMM_FAILURE from tcpSocketMTfactory.cc:909
This is enabled if the omniORB::traceLevel is 10 or greater.
- Examples.
The standard echo examples have been updated to use the POA.
There is a 'boa' directory which uses the old-style BOA interface.
There is also a 'poa' directory which isn't very exciting yet,
but will soon have a few more samples of POA code.
- Lots of other minor changes and bug fixes. Refer to the
<top>/update.log file for details.
- Things that don't work.
- The PortableServer::Current interface is not
supported. Any behaviour depending per-thread context
information is not supported.
- The DSI interface has changed significantly. Old
code will have to be re-written to the new interface.
There is no support for using the DSI with the BOA.
This part of the ORB is incomplete, since it depends in
part on PortableServer::Current. See the example in
src/examples/dsi for a way to workaround this problem for
now.
- The Lifecycle service has not yet been
re-implemented.
- The name of tie implementation skeletons has changed
(in line with the POA mapping).
|
