Re: Interface Repository (not confuse)

[Frank Rehberger <Frank Rehberger web de>]

Michael,

sorry for the last mail, I was in hurry:
Now again, but structured:

What is an Interface Repository good for?
Using a dynamic language as Python or Mozart-OZ an Interface Repository
is quiet usefull in combination with CORBA. Writing an application with
Python, one just needs to know the CORBA interface of an Service and how
to use  it. 
The moment that the object reference has been fetched, the Stub is
created that marshals invocations to the Service-Implementation. 

The problem that arises is, to find the correct IDL that defines the
objects interface. Currently this is done by Python by analyzing all IDL
files within the projects directory and afterwards all IDL files within
/usr/share/idl.
Beside the fact that this is really time expensive, it is not asured
that the IDL file is found there.

One might mention that each Python application could bring the IDL files
with itself, but interfaces might change slightly during time,i.e, an
parameter could change from short to long, and old and new IDLs could be
inconsistent.
It should exist one and only one interface definition for every service.

Therefor support for an interface repository is needed, that offers
interface definitions for objects.

My proposal is not to establish a single space interface repository but
an hierarchic one dealing with an individual IR-space for each user and
an IR-space shared with all users.
The loadpath for an individual IR could be analogous to the smalleiffel
loadpath for libraries (see http://smalleiffel.loria.fr/)

The question is which interfaces the IR should offer. 
The answer is: This must be individual for each user, beacuse as
developer I do need other services as usual users, non-stable services
etc. 
Therefor, each user should have a repository.rc file referencing
interface definitions that its IR should contain. This file could reside
at ~/.orbit/repository.rc.  All interfaces that are shared with other
users are collected at /etc/orbit/repository.rc. (see diagram)

The attachment shows the loadpath for an individual IR.

What is your opinion?

cu, Frank

IR.dia