JAV2I12 — New issue: Behavior of writeByte, writeChar, writeBytes, writeChars

A Serializable or Externalizable can define methods which take
java.io.ObjectOutputStreams. There are four methods on that class
that are well defined in Java, but the mapping to CORBA may need to be
clarified:

writeByte(int)
writeChar(int)
writeBytes(String)
writeChars(String)

Please see the Java docs for these methods:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/java/io/DataOutput.html#writeByte(int)
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/java/io/DataOutput.html#writeChar(int)
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/java/io/DataOutput.html#writeBytes(java.lang.String)
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/java/io/DataOutput.html#writeChars(java.lang.String)

Based on those detailed definitions, I'd say the mapping would be:

writeByte(int)

• write_octet of the lower 8 bits of the int

writeChar(int)

• two write_octet calls in the order as shown in the java docs

writeBytes(String)

• For each char in the String, call charAt, take the lower 8 bits, and
  call write_octet

writeChars(String)

• For each char in the String, call charAt, split the char into two
  bytes, and make two write_octet calls in the order shown in the java
  docs

Another interpretation might be to use wstrings or wchar arrays for
writeChars. The problem I see there is that since there isn't a
readChars method, the user will be using the DataInput methods
readFully or multiple readChar calls to reconstruct the String. Since
the wire format of wstrings/wchars depends on the code set, he might
start to see code set specific bytes instead of the expected bytes
detailed in the java docs of writeChars and writeChar.

see below