8.8 Implementation and Interface Repositories

The ORB uses the Implementation Repository to locate objects when stringified IORs are not available. Implementation Repositories are normally ORB specific and are used as a convenient place to store environment-specific information (e.g., security information, debugging information, etc.). The Implementation Repository will contain enough information to allow the ORB to locate the object's path and binary executable. The imr tool is used with MICO distributions to manage the Implementation Repository. The imr tool is used to display, list, add, and delete entries from the Implementation Repository. For example:

  imr  create permutation persistent " 'pwd'/permutation_server \      -ORBImplRepoAddr inet:hostname:portnumber \      -ORBNamingAddr inet:hostname:portnumber"  IDL:permutation:1.0 \ 

Adds an entry to the repository with the name permutation. The executable file is located at 'pwd'/permutation_server . The entry also includes the hostname and the portnumber that the program should be executed on. The Implementation Repository is a good place to store this type of information about an object. This entry is also given the mode of persistent. The ORB uses the information in this entry to properly initiate the execution of the program named permutation_server . See the man pages for a complete list of options available for the imr tool. The Interface Repository is used in addition to the Implementation Repository to store runtime information about each object. The Interface Repository can be used to discover the interface to CORBA objects dynamically because the IDL information about CORBA objects can be stored in the Interface Repository. The ird tool implements the Interface Repository for MICO distributions of CORBA. Although the CORBA specification describes the logical features of the Implementation Repository and the Interface Repository, the specifics are environment, distribution, and vendor specific. Also, the manner in which information is placed into and managed within an Implementation and Interface Repository will be vendor specific.