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  1. OMG Issue

CORBA35 — FullInterfaceDescription and base_interfaces question

  • Key: CORBA35-120
  • Legacy Issue Number: 9140
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Progress Software ( Steve Vinoski)
  • Summary:

    Regarding the base_interfaces attribute of the Interface Repository
    (IFR) InterfaceDef and the ExtInterfaceDef interfaces, the CORBA spec
    has only this to say:

    "The base_interfaces attribute lists all the interfaces from which
    this interface inherits."

    Does that sentence mean that the base_interfaces attribute lists only
    immediate base interfaces, or does it list all base interfaces,
    i.e., the transitive closure of the inheritance graph (minus the
    implied Object interface at the root)? I believe it is supposed to be
    a list of only immediate interfaces, as one can make further calls on
    the IFR to obtain more information about those bases, including
    their bases.

    However, both the FullInterfaceDescription and the
    ExtFullInterfaceDescription structures also have a base_interfaces
    member, which is specified as a sequence of repository IDs.
    Unfortunately, the specification contains no description whatsoever
    for this member. I argue that unlike the base_interfaces attribute
    described above, this member can't list only the immediate base
    interfaces.

    I believe that the base_interfaces member of the
    FullInterfaceDescription and the ExtFullInterfaceDescription
    structures should contain the transitive closure of all base
    interfaces. These structures are intended to supply full interface
    descriptions, after all. Specifying the base_interfaces as I suggest
    would match the operations and attributes fields of the same structs,
    which are already explicitly specified to contain all operations and
    attributes respectively from the transitive closure of the
    inheritance graph. Note also that if base_interfaces does not contain
    the transitive closure of all base interfaces, there's no way to
    obtain the information from TypeCodes, since names do not appear in
    TypeCodes in minimum CORBA.

    I therefore propose that the third paragraph of section 10.5.24.1 of
    CORBA 3.0.2 be changed from this:

    "The describe_interface operation returns a FullInterfaceDescription
    describing the interface, including its operations and attributes.
    The operations and attributes fields of the FullInterfaceDescription
    structure include descriptions of all of the operations and
    attributes in the transitive closure of the inheritance graph of the
    interface being described."

    to add a sentence defining the base_interfaces member, like this:

    "The describe_interface operation returns a FullInterfaceDescription
    describing the interface, including its operations and attributes.
    The operations and attributes fields of the FullInterfaceDescription
    structure include descriptions of all of the operations and
    attributes in the transitive closure of the inheritance graph of the
    interface being described. The base_interfaces field of the
    FullInterfaceDescription structure includes the repository IDs of all
    the base interfaces in the transitive closure of the inheritance
    graph of the interface being described, except for the repository ID
    of the implied Object base interface."

    Note that even if this change is made, the base_interfaces attribute
    of InterfaceDef and ExtInterfaceDef can (and should) remain as
    listing only immediate bases, assuming that's what the spec's
    original intent was.

  • Reported: CORBA 3.0.3 — Mon, 7 Nov 2005 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 1 Feb 2023 21:59 GMT