Chapter 12. Java IDL Tools

idltojava	Java 2 SDK 1.2 and later
The Java IDL Compiler

idltojava [ options ] IDLfiles

Description: The idltojava compiler generates Java source files from IDL interface, module, and type descriptions. The compiler ostensibly follows the standard IDL Java mapping defined by the OMG. Note that according to the standard mapping, a single IDL construct may result in several Java constructs being generated. A single IDL interface, for example, generates five Java source files.

Description: The idltojava compiler performs a preprocessing stage during compilation, much like a C or C++ compiler. The preprocessor accepts #define, #undefine, #include, and #pragma directives for preprocessing. Some of the compiler options are related to this preprocessing stage. The #pragma directives that idltojava accepts are:

#pragma prefix repos_prefix

Prepend the given prefix name to any repository names. Note that Java IDL does not support the CORBA Interface Repository, so the usefulness of this option is questionable.

#pragma javaPackage rootPackage

Place all packages generated from the IDL file within the given root package.

Description: Note that #pragma directives must appear at the beginning of the IDL file.

-Dsymbol=value

Define the named symbol with the given value during preprocessing of the IDL file. This command, for example:

% idltojava -DmaxArray=10 myFile.idl

causes the preprocessor to have the symbol maxArray defined as specified during preprocessing of the IDL file myFile.idl.

-fflag-name

-fno-flag-name

This option turns on and off execution flags for the compiler. The option with just the flag name turns on the named flag, and the option with no- followed by the flag name turns off the named flag. There is no space after the -f in both cases.

The possible flags are listed in the following table:

Flag name	Default	Description
caseless	off	Compile the IDL without considering case when comparing identifiers.
client	on	Generate client-side Java stubs for the IDL entities encountered.
cpp	on	Run a C/C++ preprocessor over the IDL files before compilation. An error is reported and compilation stops if the preprocessor is not found. Affected by the CPP and CPPARGS environment variables described in the next section, or uses the defaults if none given.
list-flags	off	Print the value of all the flags used for compilation.
list-options	off	Print a list of the command-line options used for compilation.
map-included-files	off	Generate Java code for any IDL files included by #include directives.
portable	on	Generate portable stub and skeleton Java classes (e.g., code that uses the CORBA portability layer provided in the org.omg.CORBA.portable package).
server	on	Generate server-side Java skeletons for the IDL entities encountered.
tie	off	Generate xxxTie and xxxOperations classes for each server skeleton, thus making them eligible for use in delegation-based operation.
verbose	off	Print extensive messages on the compilation procedure.
version	off	Print the version number and timestamp for the idltojava compiler in use.
write-files	on	Write the generated Java source files to the destination directory. If this flag is off, the compiler is acting as simply an IDL syntax checker.

-Ipath

The given path should be used to search for files specified in #include directives found in the IDL file. There is no space between the -I and the path.

-j path

The given path should be used as the destination for the generated Java source files. If a Java class is mapped to a Java package, the compiler creates subdirectories in the given destination automatically to store the Java files. There is a space between the -j and the path.

-Usymbol

The named symbol should be undefined when the compiler starts preprocessing the IDL files. There is no space between the -U and the symbol name.

CPP

The full path to a C/C++ pre-processor to use when the cpp flag is on during compilation. If this variable is not set in the environment, the idltojava compiler uses a default of /usr/ccs/lib/cpp on Solaris and the Microsoft Visual C++ preprocessor on Windows systems.

CPPARGS

A list of arguments to be passed to the preprocessor.

Bugs: As of this writing, Sun still has not released a final version of idltojava to correspond to the final Java IDL API included in the Java SDK 1.2. The current available version is the early-access version, which has the following notable bugs:

• Adjacent string literals cause a syntax error, instead of being concatenated as defined in the IDL specification.

• A special modifier method, accepting a discriminator value, is not generated in the Java code for IDL unions with multicase branches.

• Any context clauses on IDL method declarations are ignored silently.

tnameserv	Java 2 SDK 1.2 and later
The Java IDL Naming Service Daemon

tnameserv [ options ]

Description: The tnameserv daemon is the CORBA Naming Service daemon provided with Java IDL. The Naming Service allows remote CORBA objects to be bound to names with the naming directory of the service. Remote clients can connect to the Naming Service through standard CORBA APIs and ask for references to these objects by name or browse through the objects bound to names in the directory.

Description: The daemon should be run in the background. The tnameserv implementation of the Naming Service is a nonpersistent one (i.e., bindings created and stored in the naming context are only valid during the lifetime of the tnameserv daemon).

-ORBInitialPort portnum

Listen to the specified port for client requests on the Naming Service. The default port is 900. This option corresponds to the Java property org.omg.CORBA.ORBInitialPort.