Assumptions and third-party dependencies

Review the following assumptions and software requirements before you install the connector for CORBA.

ORB (Object Request Broker)

The adapter for CORBA assumes an object request broker environment and supports Borland VisiBroker 4.5.1 with known limitations. You must install this ORB as part of your system configuration.

Note that because Borland VisiBroker 4.5.1 cannot handle multibyte-encoded data as input to VisiBroker tools (except the ORB's runtime data transport), the adapter's Object Discovery Agent (ODA) can only accept input encoded in single byte. For this reason, IDL files and all associated files must be placed in a directory whose name does not contain multibyte characters anywhere in the path name. The IDL file itself also must not contain multibyte characters.

IDL2Java interface tool

Borland VisiBroker 4.5 uses the IDL2Java IDL compiler tool. This tool is a compiler that generates the Java proxy class definitions required by a CORBA client, in this case the connector. A Java proxy class is used by the connector at runtime to generate a proxy object instance that invokes a corresponding CORBA object running on a CORBA server.

The properties, structures, and methods of a CORBA class are defined in an IDL (Interface Definition Language) file. The IDL2Java IDL compiler tool run by the ODA converts the CORBA classes defined in the IDL file into proxy classes. At runtime, the connector creates a proxy object from a proxy class and uses the proxy object to invoke the methods of that object's corresponding CORBA class that is defined in the IDL file.

Proxy class .jar file issues

Certain application providers of CORBA servers supply the .jar file that defines the proxy classes, thus bypassing the need for the object definitions generated (compiled) by the connector's ODA (using the IDL2Java IDL compiler tool). If the CORBA server application provider supplies a .jar file of proxy class definitions, then be sure to copy the file to the ProductDir\connectors\CORBA\ext directory, or whatever directory you designate as the directory for storing the proxy class .jar files, where ProductDir represents the directory where the connector product is installed. Using Business Object Designer, you specify the appropriate directory name, in the OutputFileDir configure agent property. For details about this property and how to set it, see Configure the agent.

For details about defining properties in the ODA, see Creating and modifying business objects.

Platform requirements

The connector runs on the following platforms:

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