31 lines
1.8 KiB
Text
31 lines
1.8 KiB
Text
Flick is an interface definition language (IDL) compiler ("stub generator")
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supporting remote procedure call (RPC) and remote method invocation (RMI) for
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client/server or distributed object systems. What sets it apart from other IDL
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compilers is that it is highly optimizing while also supporting several IDLs,
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message formats, and transport mechanisms. Flick currently has front ends for
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the CORBA, Sun ONC RPC, and Mach MIG IDLs, and middle and back ends that support
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CORBA IIOP, ONC/TCP, MIG-style Mach messages, and Fluke IPC (see below). Flick
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produces stubs in the C language. A substantial user's manual is provided.
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Flick is designed to be a "kit": the user picks the IDL, language mapping, and
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transport components that are required for any particular system. Our goal is
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to make it straightforward to add new components to the kit to process new
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IDLs, language mappings, and transports. (Collaborators welcome!) Flick's
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framework can also be used to support interface annotation. Full source for
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the Flick compiler is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
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License; source for the Flick runtime is distributed under a BSD-style license.
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Flick-generated marshal and unmarshal code generally runs between 2 and 17
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times as fast as code produced by other IDL compilers, commercial and free. On
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stock hardware and operating systems, Flick-generated stubs can increase
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end-to-end client/server throughput by factors between 1.2 and 3.7 or more.
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Our paper describing these results was presented at PLDI'97, the major compiler
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conference, in June (see http://www.cs.bu.edu/pub/pldi97/). The paper is
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included as part of the Flick distribution, and is separately available at
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ftp://mancos.cs.utah.edu/papers/flick-pldi-97-abs.html.
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Jay Lepreau, lepreau@cs.utah.edu
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University of Utah Computer Science Dept.
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WWW: http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/flick/
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