On Tuesday 11 Oct 2011, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > > Part of the Standard includes a requirement for support for Interface > > Description Language > > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_description_language) from the > > Distributed Computing Environment Specification which is maintained by > > The Open Group. > > (That link's about IDLs in general, not DCE's.)
True, but there is a link to DCE on that page. > > We have always used MS Visual Studio to utilise IDL in our tools, but > > now I need to identify alternative and cross-platform tools to compile > > an IDL file and also to compile a program that uses an IDL file to > > define its API with system drivers. > > > > Can anyone tell me: > > 1. Is IDL generally used outside of MS and / or Windows? > > I rarely hear of it anymore. DCE originated outside of MS and they used > bits of it. There's bound to be legacy Unix stuff still based on it and > some new in-house code by existing users may continue using it. So how do Unix/Linux progams export their interfaces? In MS VisualStudio, I can click on a function or method and right-click to get the interface. > > 2. If so, are there alternative tools to manipulate it? > > The Open Group made the source available for their programs I think, and > it was forked at one point because there was going to be a licence > change. > > > 3. Are any of those tools available on Unix/Linux platforms? > > http://www.opengroup.org/dce/mall/ > http://freedce.sf.net/ > > The latter includes a yacc(1) grammar for an IDL compiler. > > > http://freedce.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=freedce/freedce;a=blob > ;f=freedce/idl/acf_y.y;h=7fc2bb4b86e8fcc8ff8b85d85b876c233e1aec37;hb=HEAD > > The grammar proper starts at line 265. Thanks. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
