[omniORB] ANNOUNCE: The CorbaScript / CorbaWeb 1.3.4 release

Thu, 19 Jul 2001 21:40:13 +0200 (MET DST)

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ANNOUNCE: The CorbaScript / CorbaWeb 1.3.4 release
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What is CorbaScript?
--------------------

CorbaScript is an interpreted object-oriented scripting language dedicated
to CORBA environments. Scripts (i.e. CorbaScript programs) can invoke any
operation, get and set any attribute of any CORBA object. Moreover, any
OMG IDL interface can be implemented by scripts. CorbaScript provides a
dynamic binding to OMG IDL descriptions: no OMG IDL stub or skeleton need
to be generated. OMG IDL descriptions are extracted from the Interface
Repository and are made directly available to scripts. Invocations of
CORBA objects are achieved by the CORBA DII mechanism. The CORBA DSI is 
used to implement CORBA objects with CorbaScript. Moreover scripts can 
invoke any world-wide CORBA object through IIOP.

CorbaScript fully hides these complex CORBA mechanisms via a simple,
attractive and powerful scripting language. Finally CorbaScript is
the first implementation of the OMG's IDL Script specification (have a look
at http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/formal/corba_script_language_mapping.htm).

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What is CorbaWeb?
-----------------

CorbaWeb is a powerful environment providing a generic gateway to integrate
the CORBA and World Wide Web worlds. More precisily, CorbaWeb allows Web
users to browse and invoke CORBA objects via their Web browsers.
Then Web users interact with their CORBA objects via Web documents (MIME,
HTML, forms, etc) dynamically generated on the fly. Then CorbaWeb can be
seen as a generic and dynamic CORBA objects browser.

Technically, CorbaWeb is composed of two parts:

  * HttpServer: This module provides the implementation of an HTTP server
                which manages MIME files and servlets written in CorbaScript.

  * CorbaWeb: This module provides a servlet which implements the
              functionnalities of the generic CORBA Object Browser.

Browsing CORBA objects via CorbaWeb just needs to load OMG IDL specifications
into the Interface Repository and start the HTTP server of the CorbaWeb
environment.

Then users accesses via their browsers to the CorbaWeb servlet running into
the HttpServer. Automatically, CorbaWeb generates HTML forms representing
OMG IDL operations and attributes of CORBA objects accessed by users.
These forms allow users to invoke operations, get and set attributes.

Moreover, the CorbaWeb administrator can provide scripts
to specialize the Web representation for each CORBA object type.
Some specialization scripts are already provided for the CorbaScript
demonstrations. Interesting and reusable scripts allow one to browse:

  * The Name Service.
  * The Interface Repository.

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Availability
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The CorbaScript interpreter is written in C++ and is available on most common 
Unix-based operating and Windows systems. Moreover, it is built to be easily 
ported on any ORB environment, operating system and C++ compiler. 

CorbaScript can be compiled on the following ORBs:

* MICO:		http://diamant-atm.vsb.cs.uni-frankfurt.de/~mico/
    The 2.0.3, 2.0.4, 2.0.5, 2.0.6, 2.0.8, 2.1.0,
        2.2.0, 2.2.1, 2.2.3, 2.2.4, 2.2.5, 2.2.6, 2.2.7,
        2.3.0, 2.3.1, 2.3.3, 2.3.4 and 2.3.5 releases.

   For the 2.2.7, 2.3.1, and 2.3.3 releases, see patches
   into the doc/FAQ/MICO file.

* OAK:		http://www.paragon-software.com
    The 5.2.7, 5.2.8, 5.2.9 and 5.3.4 releases.

* OmniBroker:	http://www.ooc.com/ob/
    The 2.0.2, 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 releases.

* omniORB:	http://www.uk.research.att.com/omniORB/omniORB.html
    The 2.8.0 and 3.0.3 releases.

    Need a lastest ORBacus 3.x Interface Repository. 

* ORBacus:	http://www.ooc.com/ob/
  (formerly known as OmniBroker)
    The 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3, 3.2, 3.2.1,
    3.3, 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3, 3.3.4,
    4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.0.5, and 4.1.0b1 releases.

   For the 3.3 release, see patches into the doc/FAQ/ORBacus file.

* Orbix 2000:	http://www.iona.com
    The 1.2 release.

* TAO:		http://ace.cs.wustl.edu/Download.html
    The 1.0.9, 1.0.10, 1.0.11, 1.0.12, 1.0.13, 1.1, 1.1.17 and 1.1.18 releases.

    Releases between 1.1.1 and 1.1.16 can not be supported due to some
    important changes around the TAO's Interface Repository stubs.

    Before release 1.1, it is needed to use a lastest ORBacus 3.x
    Interface Repository.

    For the 1.1.17 release, see patches into the FAQ/TAO file.

    For the 1.1.18 release, no patches are required!

* VisiBroker:	http://www.inprise.com
    The 3.2 and 3.3 releases.

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Downloading CorbaScript
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CorbaScript is an academic project available in full source form, free of 
charge for any use. Try it and give us feedback to improve it.

Go to the http://corbaweb.lifl.fr/CorbaScript/ page
to download the last CorbaScript release now!

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Changes since CorbaScript 1.3.3
-------------------------------

This new CorbaScript release includes a large set of changes and
a better support on Windows and ORBs. For more information, have a look at

	http://corbaweb.lifl.fr/CorbaScript/CHANGES

Have fun with CorbaScript and CorbaWeb. 

Best regards,
Dr. Philippe Merle
--
________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Philippe Merle
Delegation INRIA
Universite des Sciences et Technologies de Lille
UPRESA 8022 CNRS
Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille  Tel:    (33) 03 20 43 47 21
U.F.R. I.E.E.A. batiment M3                       Fax:    (33) 03 20 43 65 66
59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq CEDEX France              E-Mail: merle@lifl.fr
						  Web: http://www.lifl.fr/~merle
					     See also: http://corbaweb.lifl.fr/
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