CRISTAL-iSE framework uses CORBA IDL technology to call distributed objects, Java object on different platforms across the network. CRISTAL-iSE framework uses Common Object Request Brokerage Architecture (CORBA) for client and server communications, a key feature of CORBA is IDL (Interface Definition Language).

IDL - Java Language Mapping

In CRISTAL-iSE, we have idl files that can be found in cristal-ise/idl/src/main/idl. When updating a java interface that uses or that is bound with an IDL file, one should update the idl file itself and compile.

For Example:

The interface ItemOperations.java is linked to an IDL file Entity.idl and to modify this interface, we need to change the IDL file and run the idlj command for Entity.idl. This would then generate the java interface and classes with the updated/added methods.

Build using maven idl profile

Execute maven commands from the project root directory (e.g. cd ~/workspace/cristal-ise)

  • mvn generate-sources -P idl -pl idl - only generate the java classes from idls
  • mvn install -P idl -pl idl - full build with generation of java classes from idls
  • mvn install -pl idl - full build (no java generation)

NOTE: The generate-sources will generate all java classes including the current timestapm in the comment of the file. Unfortunatelly this will actually create a change in all the files, instead of changing only the effected ones.

Build manually

idlj -pkgTranslate entity org.cristalise.kernel.entity -pkgTranslate common org.cristalise.kernel.common -fserverTie -fallTie Entity.idl

References - idlj