Lately I have been working on porting GNOME headers to FPC, and one exceptionally large challenge has been working out how to port the BONOBO infrastructure acturately so that it could be used properly as well. I have come across a problem I hadn't even yet considered - IDL. BONOBO, being a CORBA based framework, requires ORBit and libIDL. No sweat, it has taken longer than planned but I have gotten (I believe) all of libIDL working, and I believe with work arounds to the libc/pthread dependencies, should be able to get ORBit fully functional as well. From there I can port BONOBO headers, however I realized that all this is only marginally helpfull, because there is not an IDL2Pas/IDL2PP program for FPC, and in spite of having libIDL at my disposal, I am completely clueless how to even begin! This means it will be nearly impossible to use things properly. Such as existing IDL frameworks, sharing new IDL frameworks and so forth. I have only done this using DELPHI's RAD tools before, so I am clueless where to even begin on the actual .idl file level.

So to sum up - does anybody out there have any idea how to build an IDL2PP converter? Preferably completely based on FPC, so that in the future it could be used on other platforms and with other CORBA(aka not ORBit) engines, but even to begin with based on libIDL to get thigs started. Obviously some things just won't work properly under 1.0.x, such as Interfaces, but I believe under 1.1 they are starting to work(if not already functional), and most everything else should work under FPC 1.0.x, it just means that some IDL frameworks/objects won't work properly unless using the 1.1 branch, or 1.2 when it arrives.

Anyway.. any ideas anyone? Or better yet, a fully functional completely FPC derived/compatible non-os/non-cpu specific program, completely under the lpgpl, which has already been written!? Or. maybe not.. ;-)

Andrew

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you wrote

Anyway.. any ideas anyone? Or better yet, a fully functional completely FPC derived/compatible non-os/non-cpu specific program, completely under the lpgpl, which has already been written!? Or. maybe not.. ;-)

The only thing I can tell is that the DORB and the MT-DORB (google for their homepages :) ) contain a idl2pas
tool. We're currently working on get these ORBs working with FPC. The main problem probably is that
all these things are 1.1 based. OTOH maybe the GNOME based lazarus port can be 1.1 only? I think till
the end of the year 1.0.8 will be out which will be probably the last 1.0.x release. Shortly after
1.0.8 a 1.9.0 release is planned. It won't replace 1.0.8 but it will be a pre/beta release for
2.0 (1.1 will become 2.0 when it's finished :) ) So it won't hurt if GNOME support is 1.1 only.

Actually the GNOME libs themselves were designed to be more cross-platform, aka they do not require CORBA support directly, so what I have commited will already work properly with 1.0.x, and I have started looking through to see which other libs can be ported without this issue, and it looks like the vfs and ztv (maybe print?) will probably be portable, easily, but nothing else will without ORBit. So the GNOME interface is already off the ground and started in CVS. It just means many of the wonderfull frameworks available via bonobo won't be until 2.x which isn't that big of a deal to me anyway, because it won't be too long before 1.1 becomes useable, that we can start having a 1.1 enabled Lazarus with compiler flags(actually there are already a few in place).

I just despise starting a project and not finishing it, and its bugged me that several people have started PORTIONS of this port but never all completely so I plan(ed) and doing it all, even if Lazarus itself doesn't need everything, because you never know when it will come in handy.

As for MT-ORBIT, I had already looked at it, and decided it was too MT-ORBIT specific, that is it would be a pain to make a IDL2PP for any platform/CORBA based on it. I will look into the other though.

Andrew

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