Patent
1996-03-28
1998-11-17
Oberley, Alvin
G06F 940
Patent
active
058389717
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
Computers, for example personal computers and workstations, are increasingly becoming networked with one another. Accordingly, a computer connected to such a network can work together with a large number of other computers and exchange programs. For satisfactory information exchange between a plurality of computers, it is necessary for the interface between the computer and the network to be uniquely defined. However, the use of computers in computer networks is also accompanied by problems, which exist in particular whenever computers of different architectures which operate with different operating systems are used. If in such a case a computer of a first architecture wishes to access a computer of a second architecture and wishes to send information to the latter or read information from the latter, it must be ensured that the information transmitted via the network is such that it can be used by the computers. In the following, the computer which wants writing or reading access to another computer is referred to as the client, while the computer which is to be accessed is referred to as the server.
2. Description of the Related Art
The access of the client to the server is referred to as a remote procedure call or in, abbreviated form, RPC. The problems which occur in the case of such RPCs are described, for example, in Tananbaum, "Modern Operating Systems", Printice-Hall 1992, section 10.3 pages 417 to 426.
The problems which occur in the case of such distributed computing systems with computers of different operating systems must be solved such that they remain hidden from the user programmers. This means that the interfaces have to be simple, clearly organized and standard. A system software which makes this possible is DCE (distributed computing environment) from OSF (Open Software Foundation). A review of this system software can be found in GUUG-Nachrichten 23/24 (1991) pages 30 to 39. There it is also described how in DCE the remote procedure call is carried out. For details, reference is made to the official DCE documentation from OSF.
At present, in DCE the interface definition is statically defined. The interface is described by a special language IDL (interface definition language), which is subsequently translated by a compiler into the interface procedure. The interface procedure is known as a stub; it is a procedure which on the client side transforms the information transmitted via the network into a network-internal normal form and packs it together with address and sender details. On the server side, there is a corresponding interface procedure or server stub, which transforms the data information transmitted via the network into the data format which is used at the server. In the following, these interface procedures are referred to by the term stub.
Since the interface and the data types to be transmitted via the interface are statically defined in DCE, they must always be fully defined in the design phase of a user program or an interface. This means that the interface cannot be altered at the time of execution of a user program. Expressed another way, it is not possible to write user programs with dynamic data types whose type is defined only at the time of program execution.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The FIGURE is a schematic illustration of a client and server circuit for performing the methods of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object on which the invention is based is to utilize the possibilities provided by DCE (distributed computing environment) such that there can also be included in the user programs dynamic data types which can be processed by the stubs authorized in DCE without amendments by DCE. This and other objects and advantages of the invention are achieved according to the present invention by a process for implementing dynamic data types in distributed computing networks using an OSF/DCE platform, definition of the dynamic da
REFERENCES:
patent: 5421016 (1995-05-01), Conner et al.
patent: 5452459 (1995-09-01), Drury et al.
patent: 5497463 (1996-03-01), Stein et al.
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Sep., 1981, "Why Programming Environments Need Dynamic Data Types", J. Goodwinl, pp. 451-457.
Prentice-Hall, 1992, "Modern Operating Systems", A. Tanenbaum, pp. 417-426.
"Advanced C++ Programming Styles and Idioms", J.O. Coplien, pp. 276-306.
Modl Raimund
Stadler Kurt
Courtenay III St. John
Oberley Alvin
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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