Provides the mapping of the OMG CORBA APIs to the Java
TM
programming language, including the class
ORB, which is implemented
so that a programmer can use it as a fully-functional Object Request Broker
(ORB).
For a precise list of supported sections of official CORBA specifications with which
the Java[TM] Platform, Standard Edition 6 complies, see Official Specifications for CORBA support in
Java[TM] SE 6.
General Information
The information in this section is information relevant to someone who
compiles Interface Definition Language (IDL) files and uses the
ORB to write clients and servers.
The classes and interfaces described in this section can be put into
four groups: ORB classes, Exceptions, Helper classes,
and Holder classes.
The ORB Class
An ORB handles (or brokers) method invocations between a client and
the method's implementation on a server. Because the client and server
may be anywhere on a network, and because the invocation and implementation
may be written in different programming languages, an ORB does a great
deal of work behind the scenes to accomplish this communication.
Most of what an ORB does is completely transparent to the user, and a major
portion of the CORBA package consists of classes used by the ORB
behind the scenes. The result is that most programmers will use only a
small part of this package directly. In fact, most programmers will use
only a few methods from the ORB class, some exceptions, and
occasionally,
a holder class.
ORB Methods
Before an application can enter the CORBA environment, it must first:
- Be initialized into the ORB and possibly the object adapter (POA) environments.
- Get references to ORB object (for use in future ORB operations)
and perhaps other objects (including the root POA or some Object Adapter objects).
The following operations are provided to initialize applications and obtain
the appropriate object references:
- Operations providing access to the ORB, which are discussed in this
section.
- Operations providing access to Object Adapters, Interface Repository,
Naming Service, and other Object Services. These operations are described
in Other Classes.
When an application requires a CORBA environment it needs a mechanism to
get an ORB object reference and possibly an OA object reference
(such as the root POA). This serves two purposes. First, it initializes
an application into the ORB and OA environments. Second, it returns the
ORB object reference and the OA object reference to the application
for use in future ORB and OA operations.
In order to obtain an ORB object reference, applications call
the ORB.init operation. The parameters to the call can comprise an
identifier for the ORB for which the object reference is required,
and an arg_list, which is used to allow environment-specific data to be
passed into the call.
These are the ORB methods
that provide access to the ORB:
-
init()
-
init(String [] args, Properties props)
-
init(Applet app, Properties props)
Using the init() method without parameters initiates
a singleton ORB, which can only
give typecode creation anys needed in code generated
in Helper classes by idlj.
Applications require a portable means by which to obtain their
initial object references. References are required for the root
POA, POA Current, Interface Repository, and various Object Services
instances. The functionality required by the application is similar
to that provided by the Naming Service. However, the OMG does not
want to mandate that the Naming Service be made available to all
applications in order that they may be portably initialized.
Consequently, the operations shown in this section provide a
simplified, local version of the Naming Service that applications
can use to obtain a small, defined set of object references which
are essential to its operation. Because only a small well-defined
set of objects are expected with this mechanism, the naming context
can be flattened to be a single-level name space. This simplification
results in only two operations being defined to achieve the functionality
required.
Initial references are obtained via two operations provided in
the ORB object interface, providing facilities to list and
resolve initial object references. These are:
-
resolve_initial_references(String name)
-
list_initial_services()
-
register_initial_reference(String id,
org.omg.CORBA.Object obj)
An example that uses some of these methods is
Getting Started with Java IDL.
Exceptions
Exceptions in Java IDL are similar to those in any code written in the
Java programming language. If a method is defined to throw an exception,
then any code using that method must have a
try/
catch
block and handle that exception when it is thrown.
The documentation on Java
IDL exceptions has more information and explains the difference between
system exceptions and user-defined exceptions.
The following is a list of the system exceptions (which are unchecked
exceptions inheriting through
org.omg.CORBA.SystemException from
java.lang.RuntimeException) that are defined in the package
org.omg.CORBA:
BAD_CONTEXT
BAD_INV_ORDER
BAD_OPERATION
BAD_PARAM
BAD_TYPECODE
COMM_FAILURE
DATA_CONVERSION
FREE_MEM
IMP_LIMIT
INITIALIZE
INTERNAL
INTF_REPOS
INVALID_TRANSACTION
INV_FLAG
INV_IDENT
INV_OBJREF
INV_POLICY
MARSHAL
NO_IMPLEMENT
NO_MEMORY
NO_PERMISSION
NO_RESOURCES
NO_RESPONSE
OBJECT_NOT_EXIST
OBJ_ADAPTER
PERSIST_STORE
TRANSACTION_REQUIRED
TRANSACTION_ROLLEDBACK
TRANSIENT
UNKNOWN
The following is a list of user-defined exceptions defined in the package
org.omg.CORBA.
Bounds
UnknownUserException
WrongTransaction
PolicyError
Subpackages
There are some packages inside the
CORBA package with
"Package" as part of their names. These packages are generally quite small
because all they do is provide exceptions or classes for use by interfaces
and classes in the
CORBA package.
For example, the package
org.omg.CORBA.TypeCodePackage contains
two exceptions thrown by methods in the class TypeCode. These
exceptions are:
The package
org.omg.CORBA.ORBPackage contains two exceptions:
-
InvalidName
-
InconsistentTypeCode
Another package that is a subpackage of CORBA is the
portable package. It
provides a set of ORB APIs that makes it
possible for code generated by one vendor's IDL compiler to run
on another vendor's ORB.
Holder classes
Support for out and inout parameter passing modes requires the use of
additional holder
classes. Because the Java programming language does not support out or
inout parameters, holder classes are needed as a means of passing a parameter
that can be modified. To support portable stubs and skeletons, holder classes also implement
the org.omg.CORBA.portable.Streamable
interface.
Holder classes are named by appending "Holder" to the name of the type.
The name of the type refers to its name in the Java programming language. For
example, a holder class for the interface named Account in the Java programming
language would be named AccountHolder.
Holder classes are available for all of the basic IDL
datatypes in the org.omg.CORBA package. So, for example,
there are already-defined classes for LongHolder, ShortHolder,
FloatHolder, and so on. Classes are also generated for
all named user-defined IDL types except those defined by typedefs.
(Note that in this context user defined includes types that are
defined in OMG specifications such as those for the Interface
Repository, and other OMG services.)
Each holder class has:
- a constructor from an instance
- a default constructor
- a public instance member, value which is the typed value.
- a method for reading an input stream and assigning the contents to the
type's value field
- a method for writing the value of the value field to an output stream
- a method for getting the typecode of the type
The default constructor sets the value field to the default value for the
type as defined by the Java language:
- false for boolean
- 0 for numeric and char types
- null for strings and object references
As an example, if the interface Account
, defined in OMG IDL,
were mapped to the Java programming language, the following holder class
would be generated:
public final class AccountHolder implements
org.omg.CORBA.portable.Streamable
{
// field that holds an Account object
public Account value = null;
// default constructor
public AccountHolder ()
{
}
// creates a new AccountHolder from initialValue
public AccountHolder (Account initialValue)
{
value = initialValue;
}
// reads the contents of i and assigns the contents to value
public void _read (org.omg.CORBA.portable.InputStream i)
{
value = AccountHelper.read (i);
}
// writes value to o
public void _write (org.omg.CORBA.portable.OutputStream o)
{
AccountHelper.write (o, value);
}
// returns the typecode for Account
public org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode _type ()
{
return AccountHelper.type ();
}
}
For more information on Holder classes, see Chapter 1.4, Mapping for
Basic Types in the
OMG IDL to Java Language Mapping. The Holder classes defined
in the package org.omg.CORBA are:
AnyHolder
AnySeqHolder
BooleanHolder
BooleanSeqHolder
ByteHolder
CharHolder
CharSeqHolder
CurrentHolder
DoubleHolder
DoubleSeqHolder
FixedHolder
FloatHolder
FloatSeqHolder
IntHolder
LongHolder
LongLongSeqHolder
LongSeqHolder
ObjectHolder
OctetSeqHolder
ParameterModeHolder
PolicyErrorHolder
PolicyListHolder
PrincipalHolder
ServiceInformationHolder
ShortHolder
ShortSeqHolder
StringHolder
StringSeqHolder
TypeCodeHolder
ULongLongSeqHolder
ULongSeqHolder
UnknownUserExceptionHolder
UShortSeqHolder
ValueBaseHolder
WCharSeqHolder
WrongTransactionHolder
WStringSeqHolder
Helper Classes
Helper files supply several static methods needed to manipulate the type.
These include:
- Any insert and extract operations for the type
- getting the repository id
- getting the typecode
- reading and writing the type from and to a stream
- implement the
ValueHelper
interface (if it is a user-defined
value type)
The helper class for a mapped IDL interface or abstract interface
also include narrow operation(s). The static narrow method allows
an org.omg.CORBA.Object to be narrowed to the object reference
of a more specific type. The IDL exception CORBA.BAD_PARAM
is thrown if the narrow fails because the object reference does not
support the requested type. A different system exception is raised
to indicate other kinds of errors. Trying to narrow a null will always
succeed with a return value of null. Generally, the only helper method an application programmer uses is
the narrow
method. The other methods are normally used behind
the scenes and are transparent to the programmer.
Helper classes
fall into two broad categories, helpers for value types and
helpers for non value types. Because all of the helper
classes in one category
provide the same methods, one generic explanation of each
category of helper classes is presented here.
When OMG IDL is mapped to the Java programming language,
a "helper" class is generated for each user-defined type.
This generated class will have the name of the user-defined type with
the suffix Helper
appended. For example, if the
interface Account
is defined in OMG IDL, the
idlj
compiler will automatically generate a class named
AccountHelper
. The AccountHelper
class
will contain the static methods needed for manipulating instances of the type,
in this case, Account
objects.
The narrow
Method
When an object is the return value for a method, it is returned in the
form of a generic object, either an
org.omg.CORBA.Object
object
or a
java.lang.Object
object. This object must be cast to its
more specific type before it can be operated on. For example, an
Account
object will be returned as a generic object and must
be narrowed to an
Account
object so that
Account
methods may be called on it.
The narrow
method has two forms, one that takes an
org.omg.CORBA.Object
object and one that takes a
java.lang.Object
object. Whether the interface is abstract or
not determines which narrow
method its helper class will provide.
The helper class for an interface
that is not abstract will have a narrow
method that takes a CORBA
object, whereas the narrow
method for an interface that is abstract
will
take an object in the Java programming language. The helper class for a
non-abstract interface that has at least one abstract base interface will provide
both versions of the narrow
method.
The Hello World
tutorial uses a narrow method that looks
like this:
// create and initialize the ORB
ORB orb = ORB.init(args, null);
// get the root naming context
org.omg.CORBA.Object objRef =
orb.resolve_initial_references("NameService");
// Use NamingContextExt instead of NamingContext. This is
// part of latest Inter-Operable naming Service.
NamingContextExt ncRef = NamingContextExtHelper.narrow(objRef);
// resolve the Object Reference in Naming
String name = "Hello";
helloImpl = HelloHelper.narrow(ncRef.resolve_str(name));
Example of a Basic Helper Class
A basic helper class, for purposes of this explanation, is one with
the methods that are provided by every helper class, plus a
narrow
method if the type defined in OMG IDL maps to an interface in the Java
programming language. Types that are not value types will have a basic
helper class generated for them.
For example, assuming that the interface Account
is not a
value type IDL type and is also not an abstract interface and has no
abstract base interfaces, its AccountHelper
class will look
like this:
abstract public class AccountHelper
{
private static String _id = "IDL:Account:1.0";
// inserts an Account object into an Any object
public static void insert (org.omg.CORBA.Any a, Account that)
{
org.omg.CORBA.portable.OutputStream out = a.create_output_stream ();
a.type (type ());
write (out, that);
a.read_value (out.create_input_stream (), type ());
}
// extracts an Account object from an Any object
public static Account extract (org.omg.CORBA.Any a)
{
return read (a.create_input_stream ());
}
private static org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode __typeCode = null;
// gets the typecode for this type
synchronized public static org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode type ()
{
if (__typeCode == null)
{
__typeCode = org.omg.CORBA.ORB.init ().create_interface_tc (AccountHelper.id (), "Account");
}
return __typeCode;
}
// gets the repository id for this type
public static String id ()
{
return _id;
}
// reads an Account object from an input stream
public static Account read (org.omg.CORBA.portable.InputStream istream)
{
return narrow (istream.read_Object (_AccountStub.class));
}
// writes an Account object to an outputstream
public static void write (org.omg.CORBA.portable.OutputStream ostream, Account value)
{
ostream.write_Object ((org.omg.CORBA.Object) value);
}
// converts (narrows) an Object to an Account object
public static Account narrow (org.omg.CORBA.Object obj)
{
if (obj == null)
return null;
else if (obj instanceof Account)
return (Account)obj;
else if (!obj._is_a (id ()))
throw new org.omg.CORBA.BAD_PARAM ();
else
{
org.omg.CORBA.portable.Delegate delegate = ((org.omg.CORBA.portable.ObjectImpl)obj)._get_delegate ();
_AccountStub stub = new _AccountStub ();
stub._set_delegate(delegate);
return stub;
}
}
}
Value Type Helper Classes
A helper class for a value type includes different renderings of
the same methods generated for non-value type methods. The main difference
is that value types are types that can be
passed by value as parameters or return values of a method, which means that
they must be serializable.
Assuming that Address
is a value type, the
AddressHelper
class will look like this:
abstract public class AddressHelper
{
private static String _id = "IDL:Address:1.0";
// same as for non-value type
public static void insert (org.omg.CORBA.Any a, Address that)
{
org.omg.CORBA.portable.OutputStream out = a.create_output_stream ();
a.type (type ());
write (out, that);
a.read_value (out.create_input_stream (), type ());
}
// same as for non-value type
public static Address extract (org.omg.CORBA.Any a)
{
return read (a.create_input_stream ());
}
private static org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode __typeCode = null;
private static boolean __active = false;
// getting the typecode for the type
synchronized public static org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode type ()
{
if (__typeCode == null)
{
synchronized (org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode.class)
{
if (__typeCode == null)
{
if (__active)
{
return org.omg.CORBA.ORB.init().create_recursive_tc ( _id );
}
__active = true;
org.omg.CORBA.ValueMember[] _members0 = new org.omg.CORBA.ValueMember[0];
org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode _tcOf_members0 = null;
__typeCode = org.omg.CORBA.ORB.init ().create_value_tc (_id, "Address", org.omg.CORBA.VM_NONE.value, null, _members0);
__active = false;
}
}
}
return __typeCode;
}
// same as for non-value type
public static String id ()
{
return _id;
}
// reads a serializable instance of Address from the given input stream
public static Address read (org.omg.CORBA.portable.InputStream istream)
{
return (Address)((org.omg.CORBA_2_3.portable.InputStream) istream).read_value (id ());
}
// writes a serializable instance of Address to the given output stream
public static void write (org.omg.CORBA.portable.OutputStream ostream, Address value)
{
((org.omg.CORBA_2_3.portable.OutputStream) ostream).write_value (value, id ());
}
}
The Helper classes defined in the package org.omg.CORBA are:
AnySeqHelper
BooleanSeqHelper
CharSeqHelper
CompletionStatusHelper
CurrentHelper
DefinitionKindHelper
DoubleSeqHelper
FieldNameHelper
FloatSeqHelper
IdentifierHelper
IDLTypeHelper
LongLongSeqHelper
LongSeqHelper
NameValuePairHelper
ObjectHelper
OctetSeqHelper
ParameterModeHelper
PolicyErrorCodeHelper
PolicyErrorHelper
PolicyHelper
PolicyListHelper
PolicyTypeHelper
RepositoryIdHelper
ServiceDetailHelper
ServiceInformationHelper
SetOverrideTypeHelper
ShortSeqHelper
StringSeqHelper
StringValueHelper
StructMemberHelper
ULongLongSeqHelper
ULongSeqHelper
UnionMemberHelper
UnknownUserExceptionHelper
UShortSeqHelper
ValueBaseHelper
ValueMemberHelper
VersionSpecHelper
VisibilityHelper
WCharSeqHelper
WrongTransactionHelper
WStringSeqHelper
WStringValueHelper
Other Classes
The other classes and interfaces in the
CORBA package, which are
used behind the scenes, can be put into four groups. Three of the groups
are used with requests in some capacity, and the fourth group, concerning
the Interface Repository, is a category by itself.
Classes Created by an ORB
The first group contains classes that are created by an ORB and contain
information used in request operations.
-
TCKind -- indicates the kind (datatype) for a TypeCode
object
-
TypeCode -- indicates a datatype and possibly other information
-
Any -- contains a value and its typecode
-
NamedValue -- contains a name, an Any object, and an
argument mode flag. NamedValue objects contain information about
method arguments, method return values, or a context.
-
ContextList -- a list of strings that describe the contexts that
need to be resolved and sent with an invocation
-
ExceptionList -- a list of TypeCodes for exceptions that
may be thrown by a method
-
Environment -- a container for the exception thrown during a method
invocation
-
Context -- a list of NamedValue objects used to pass
auxiliary information from client to server
-
NVList -- a list of NamedValue objects, used to pass
arguments or get results
Classes That Deal with Requests
The second group of classes deals with requests:
-
Object -- the base class for all CORBA object references
-
Request -- the main class in the DII, which contains methods for
adding arguments to the request, for accessing information about the method
being invoked (the method name, its arguments, exceptions it throws, and
so on), and for making invocations on the request
-
DynamicImplementation -- the base class for server implementations
using the DSI. It has the method invoke, which is used by an
implementation
of this class to determine the state of a ServerRequest object
and to set its result or exception
-
ServerRequest -- captures the explicit state of a request for
the Dynamic Skeleton Interface
Interfaces That Serve as Constants
The third group contains interfaces that serve as constants. The IDL-to-Java
mapping mandates that IDL enums are mapped to a Java class with the enumerated
values represented as public static final fields in that class (e.g.
DefinitionKind).
On the other hand IDL constants defined outside of an IDL interface are
mapped to a Java interface for each constant.
This is why several interfaces in the org.omg.CORBA package
consist of a single field, value, which is a short. This
field is a constant used for such things as an error code or value modifier.
For example, the value field of the interface BAD_POLICY
is one of the possible reasons for the exception PolicyError to
be thrown. To specify this error code, you would use BAD_POLICY.value.
The exception PolicyError uses the value field of
the following interfaces as its possible error codes.
-
BAD_POLICY
-
BAD_POLICY_TYPE
-
BAD_POLICY_VALUE
-
UNSUPPORTED_POLICY
-
UNSUPPORTED_POLICY_VALUE
The method
TypeCode.type_modifier returns the
value field
of one of the following interfaces. The
VM in the names of these
interfaces stands for "value modifier."
-
VM_NONE
-
VM_ABSTRACT
-
VM_CUSTOM
-
VM_TRUNCATABLE
The following constants are returned by a
ValueMember
object's
access method to denote the visibility of the
ValueMember
object.
-
PRIVATE_MEMBER
-
PUBLIC_MEMBER
These flags, used in
NamedValue objects or as parameters to methods,
are defined in the following interfaces:
-
ARG_IN
-
ARG_INOUT
-
ARG_OUT
-
CTX_RESTRICT_SCOPE
Interface Repository Interfaces and Classes
A fourth group contains the Interface Repository interfaces and classes,
which are generated by the
idlj compiler from the OMG IDL
interface
ir.idl. The purpose of the Interface Repository is to
identify the interfaces stored in it so that they can be accessed by an
ORB. Each module, type, interface, attribute, operation, parameter, exception,
constant, and so on is described completely by the Interface Repository
API.
An ORB does not require that there be an interface repository, and Java
IDL does not include one. Even though this release does not include an
implementation of an interface repository, the following IR classes and
interfaces have been included for the purpose of creating typecodes (see
create_value_tc, create_struct_tc, create_union_tc and create_exception_tc
methods in interface org.omg.CORBA.ORB):
&nbs
-
IRObject
-
IDLType
-
DefinitionKind
-
StructMember
-
UnionMember
-
ValueMember
Related Documentation
For overviews, guides, and a tutorial, please see:
CORBA Features Not Implemented in Java IDL
Some of the API included in org.omg subpackages is provided for
conformance with the current OMG CORBA specification but is not implemented
in Sun's release of the JDKTM. This enables
other JDK licensees to provide implementations of this API in standard
extensions and products.
Features That Throw NO_IMPLEMENT
Some of the API included in org.omg subpackages throw
NO_IMPLEMENT exceptions for various reasons. Among these reasons
are:
- In some cases, for example LocalObject, the complete
implementation according to the specification indicates that
these API should throw NO_IMPLEMENT.
- In most cases, for example methods in ORB.java,
methods that throw
NO_IMPLEMENT are actually implemented in subclasses
elsewhere in the ORB code.
- In some cases, for example _get_interface_def()
and _get_interface, API are really not yet implemented.
General Summary of Features or API Not Implemented in This Release:
-
Interface Repository. An Interface Repository is not required for normal
operation of Java IDL.
-
Java IDL does not support long double.
-
Policies (org.omg.CORBA.Policy) and methods for getting them are not implemented.
-
Domain managers (org.omg.CORBA.DomainManager) and methods for
getting them are not implemented.
-
Service Information org.omg.CORBA.ServiceInformation and ORB method public boolean get_service_information(short service_type,
ServiceInformationHolder
service_info) are not implemented.
- ORB methods for supporting single-threading (perform_work, work_pending) are not implemented.
- IDL contexts.
Specific List of Unimplemented Features in Package org.omg.CORBA
Unimplemented Methods in package org.omg.CORBA:
-
ORB
-
public org.omg.CORBA.Policy create_policy(int type, org.omg.CORBA.Any
val)
-
public void perform_work()
-
public boolean work_pending()
-
public org.omg.CORBA.Current get_current()
-
create_operation_list
-
get_default_context
-
get_service_information
-
obsolete DynAnys (deprecated in favor of DynamicAny package)