OpenFusion TAO 1.6 Release Notes

The OpenFusion TAO 1.6 Release Notes cover the following topics:

Supported Platforms and Compilers

OpenFusion TAO Directory Organisation

Default Build Options

TAO 1.6 Features

Upgrading to OpenFusion TAO 1.6

Fixed Bugs

Changes and Enhancements

Interoperability and Compatibility

Error Codes

Known Issues

Supported Platforms and Compilers

PrismTech offers various builds:

Standard - built without inline or debug flags.
Inline - built with inline flag and without the debug flag.
Debug - built without the inline flag and with the debug flag.

See the table below for build availability.

Platform / Architecture / Compiler	Standard	Inline	Debug
SunOS 5.10 Generic / SPARC / Sun Studio 11 C++ 5.8 - 32 bits	Yes	No	No
SunOS 5.10 Generic / SPARC / Sun Studio 9 C++ 5.6 - 64 bits / ipV6	Yes	No	Yes
SunOS 5.10 Generic / SPARC / Sun Studio 9 C++ 5.6 - 32 bits / ipV6	Yes	No	No
SunOS 5.10 Generic / SPARC / gcc version 3.4.4	Yes	Yes	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Tikanga) / x86 / gcc version 4.1.2 - 32 and 64 bits	Yes	Yes	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.1 (Tikanga) / x86 / gcc version 4.1.2	Yes	Yes	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5 (Tikanga) / x86 / gcc version 4.1.1	Yes	Yes	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 2) / x86 / gcc version 3.4.4	Yes	Yes	Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 2) / x86 / gcc version 3.4.6 - ipV6	Yes	No	No
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 2) / x86 / gcc version 3.4.6 - 64 bits / ipV6	Yes	No	No
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 4 (Nahant Update 6) / Itanium ia64 / gcc version 3.4.6 - 64 bits	Yes	Yes	Yes
HP-UX 11.11 / PARISC / aCC version 3.67	No	Yes	No
AIX 5.3 / POWER5 / xlc version 8.0 - 32 bit build on 64 bit OS	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Windows Vista / XP / 2003 server / Microsoft Visual C++ 8.0 - 32 bits	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Windows Vista / XP / 2003 server / Microsoft Visual C++ 8.0 (MFC) - 32 bits	No	Yes	No

PrismTech supports a wide variety of platforms and compilers. For an up-to-date list, contact us via http://www.prismtechnologies.com/

Additional operating system / compiler combinations may be supported based on demand.

OpenFusion TAO Directory Organisation

The OpenFusion TAO directory organisation is different from other TAO distributions.

The PrismTech distribution has a modified directory structure to make it more readable and usable.

The directory structure is as follows:

bin — holds all the executables files for this distribution, for example The TAO IDL compiler.
docs — holds all the documentation that comes with the distribution.
examples — holds the example code.
idl — holds all the idl files that make up the distribution.
include — holds all the include files for client/server development.
lib — holds all the libraries for TAO and OpenFusion.
src — holds a gzipped file with the entire source code for ACE and TAO.

OpenFusion TAO Default Build Options

PrismTech's TAO distribution is by default built with the following options:

Key: The values in the Must Match column have the meanings defined below.

Y - the application must have the same value as the build
N - the application may use any value it chooses
E = the application can only use this option if it was set at build time
B - this option is only effective at build time

The inline, debug and MFC flags are set according to the build. See the build availability list above.

Option	Description	Must Match	Default Build Flags (Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, LynxOS)	Default Build Flags (Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP)
exceptions	Enable native C++ exceptions	Y	1	1
Include_env	Enable ACE_TRY_ENV macro backward compatibility mode.	Y	0	0
rtti	Enable C++ RTTI	N	1	0
optimize	Turn on compiler optimiztion	N	1	1
repo	Use GNU template repository	N	0	0
fast	Use -fast compiler option (SunCC only)	N	0	0
threads	Enable threads (if OS supports)	Y	1	1
purify	Third party product support	N	0	0
quantify	Third party product support	N	0	0
shared_libs	Build shared libraries	E	1	0
static_libs	Build archive libraries	E	0	0
shared_libs_only	Build shared libraries only	E	1	0
static_libs_only	Build static libraries only	E	0	0
minimum_corba	Build with minimum CORBA support	B	0	0
probe	Enable ACE_Timeprobes	B	0	0
profile	Enable profiling	N	0	0
xt_reactor	Build with xt reactor	Y	0*	0
fl_reactor	Build with fl reactor	Y	0	0
tk_reactor	Build with tk reactor	Y	0	0
qt-reactor	Build with Qt reactor	Y	0	0
ami	Enable Asynchronous Method Invocation (AMI)	Y	1	1
smart_proxies	Enable Smart Proxies	Y	0	0
corba_messaging	Enable CORBA Messaging	Y	1	1
rt_corba	Enable Real-time CORBA support	Y	1	1
Interface_repo	Enable Interface Repository support	N	1	1
interceptors	Enable portable interceptors	Y	1	1
fakesvcconf	Build in default Service Configurator options	B	0	0

* The Sun ONE Studio 7, 8, 9 and 10 and HP ANSI C++ B3910B A.03.39 compiler builds have the xt_reactor flag set to 1.

TAO 1.6 Features

Complies with the CORBA 3.x standard
C++ language mappings
Fully multithreaded
CORBA IDL compiler
Real-Time CORBA, including:
- Real-Time ORB
- Real-Time POA
- Real-Time Current
- Priority Mappings
- Client_Propagated Priority Model
- Server_Declared Priority Model
- Server Protocol Policy
- Client Protocol Policy
- Priority Banded Connections
- Explicit Binding
- Private Connections
- Invocation Timeout
- RT Mutex
- POA Threadpools
Pluggable protocols, including:
- UIOP: GIOP over local IPC (UNIX domain sockets)
- SHMIOP: GIOP over shared memory
- SSLIOP: IIOP over SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
- DIOP: GIOP over UDP/IP
POA
DynAny
Support for POSIX threads
Object By Value
CORBA Messaging

Asynchronous Method Invocation
Policy QoS

Implementation Repository
Interface Repository
COS Naming Service
COS Event Service

Product deliverables

The following libraries and executables are the TAO product deliverables:

Libraries

libACEXML_XML_Svc_Conf_Parser.so
libACEXML.so
libACEXML_Parser.so
libTAO_IDL_FE.so
libTAO_IDL_BE.so
libTAO_IFR_BE.so
libTAO_ImR.so
libTAO_ImR_Activator_IDL.so
libTAO_ImR_Locator_IDL.so
libTAO_ImR_Activator.so
libTAO_ImR_Locator.so
libTAO_MMPersistence.so
libTAO_MMPersistConfig.so
libTAO_Svc_Utils.so
libTAO_CosNaming.so
libTAO_CosNaming_Skel.so
libTAO_CosNaming_Serv.so
libTAO_CosEvent.so
libTAO_CosEvent_Skel.so
libTAO_CosEvent_Serv.so
libTAO_PortableGroup.so
libTAO_FTORB_Utils.so
libTAO_FT_ClientORB.so
libTAO_IFRService.so
libTAO_Security.so
libTAO_SSLIOP.so
libTAO.so
libTAO_Codeset.so
libTAO_AnyTypeCode.so
libTAO_CodecFactory.so
libTAO_PI.so
libTAO_BiDirGIOP.so
libTAO_PortableServer.so
libTAO_CSD_Framework.so
libTAO_CSD_ThreadPool.so
libTAO_IFR_Client.so
libTAO_Domain.so
libTAO_DynamicAny.so
libTAO_Valuetype.so
libTAO_Messaging.so
libTAO_DynamicInterface.so
libTAO_ObjRefTemplate.so
libTAO_IORInterceptor.so
libTAO_IORManip.so
libTAO_IORTable.so
libTAO_ImR_Client.so
libTAO_PI_Server.so
libTAO_RTCORBA.so
libTAO_RTPortableServer.so
libTAO_RTScheduler.so
libTAO_SmartProxies.so
libTAO_Strategies.so
libTAO_TypeCodeFactory.so
libTAO_Utils.so
libACE_SSL.so
libACE.so
libOFCosClock.so
libOFCosClockSkel.so
libOFMofReflective.so
libOFCosNotification.so
libOFCosLogging.so
libOFMofReflectiveSkel.so
libOFCosNotificationSkel.so
libOFCosLoggingSkel.so
libOFTypes.so
libOFCosNaming.so
libOFCosNamingSkel.so
libOFCosTime.so
libOFCosTimeSkel.so
libOFCosTrading.so
libOFCosTradingSkel.so
libOFTypesSkel.so

Executables

tao_idl
CosEvent_Service
IFR_Service
tao_ifr
tao_activator
tao_imrd_activator
tao_activator_mgr
tao_imrd_mgr
tao_imrd
ImR_Activator
tao_imr
ImplRepo_Service
Naming_Service
NT_Naming_Service
catior
nsadd
nsdel
nslist
gperf
g++dep

Error Codes

CORBA applications report errors via catching thrown CORBA exceptions. (Note that TAO no longer provides CORBA defined/emulated exceptions, instead it relies on standard, native C++ exception-handling, using try and catch statements.) CORBA exceptions are split into two different forms: "System exceptions" which are thrown by the ORB itself and "User exceptions" that are defined by IDL statements declared by the ORB provided services or end-user applications.

Normally simply catching the specific CORBA exception is enough to indicate the problem; but the CORBA standard allows the ORB vendor to supply supplemental information with each exception in the form of its minor code which is a numerical CORBA::ULong value (obtained from the caught exception itself via the minor() accessor function). This value is split up into several sub-fields; the upper most significant 20-bits are reserved to indicate which ORB originated the minor code itself, while the least significant 12-bits are used by that ORB as it sees fit (TAO splits these 12-bits into two sub-fields). Note that the actual ORB specific minor codes are not meant to be portable between different CORBA ORBs; those provided by TAO are listed below. In addition some simple minor codes are actually detailed in the CORBA standard for specific circumstances; a minor code of 0x00000000u for example, simply indicates no further details are available. All of these CORBA defined codes have zero in the most significant 20-bits. These codes are mainly used to enable support or debugging to determine why the exceptions are being thrown in the first place. They will probably have little relevance to an end user's application unless they are attempting to specialise the handling of certain otherwise generic exceptions.

CORBA Exception Minor Code (`CORBA::ULong`):
20-MSBits	5-Bits	7-LSBits
Identifier `0x54410u << 12` (in ASCII "TA" and a zero nibble)	Location Code	Error Code

Full details of the TAO Location Codes can be found in the "Error Handling" chapter of the OCI "TAO Developer's Guide" book, but the best insight may be found by searching the TAO source code directly for the specific used #define Location Code identifiers shown in the table below.

TAO (5-bit) Location Code	Description	Value
	No specific location details indicated	(0x00u << 7)
TAO_INVOCATION_LOCATION_FORWARD_MINOR_CODE	Location forward failed	(0x01u << 7)
TAO_INVOCATION_SEND_REQUEST_MINOR_CODE	Send request failed	(0x02u << 7)
TAO_POA_DISCARDING	POA in discarding state	(0x03u << 7)
TAO_POA_HOLDING	POA in holding state	(0x04u << 7)
TAO_UNHANDLED_SERVER_CXX_EXCEPTION	Unhandled C++ exception in server side	(0x05u << 7)
TAO_INVOCATION_RECV_REQUEST_MINOR_CODE	Failed to receive request response	(0x06u << 7)
TAO_CONNECTOR_REGISTRY_NO_USABLE_PROTOCOL	All protocols failed to parse the IOR	(0x07u << 7)
TAO_MPROFILE_CREATION_ERROR	Error during MProfile creation	(0x08u << 7)
TAO_TIMEOUT_CONNECT_MINOR_CODE	Timeout during connect	(0x09u << 7)
TAO_TIMEOUT_SEND_MINOR_CODE	Timeout during send	(0x0au << 7)
TAO_TIMEOUT_RECV_MINOR_CODE	Timeout during receive	(0x0bu << 7)
TAO_IMPLREPO_MINOR_CODE	Implrepo server exception	(0x0cu << 7)
TAO_ACCEPTOR_REGISTRY_OPEN_LOCATION_CODE	Endpoint initialization failure in Acceptor Registry	(0x0du << 7)
TAO_ORB_CORE_INIT_LOCATION_CODE	ORB core initialization failed	(0x0eu << 7)
TAO_POLICY_NARROW_CODE	Failure when narrowing a Policy	(0x0fu << 7)
TAO_GUARD_FAILURE	Failure when trying to acquire a guard/monitor	(0x10u << 7)
TAO_POA_BEING_DESTROYED	POA has been destroyed or is currently being destroyed	(0x11u << 7)
TAO_POA_INACTIVE	POA in inactive state	(0x12u << 7)
TAO_CONNECTOR_REGISTRY_INIT_LOCATION_CODE	Initialization failure in Connector Registry	(0x13u << 7)
TAO_AMH_REPLY_LOCATION_CODE	Failure when trying to send AHM reply	(0x14u << 7)
TAO_RTCORBA_THREAD_CREATION_LOCATION_CODE	Failure in thread creation for RTCORBA thread pool	(0x15u << 7)

The table below lists the TAO Error Codes; these are based upon the posix standard C errno equivalent codes. These errno values may help determine what the real problem might have been, as they represent the underlying Operating System error that resulted in the exception being thrown (if any).

TAO (7-bit) Error Code	Description	Value
TAO_UNSPECIFIED_MINOR_CODE	Unspecified minor code	0x00u
TAO_ETIMEDOUT_MINOR_CODE	Connection timed out	0x01u
TAO_ENFILE_MINOR_CODE	Too many files open in system	0x02u
TAO_EMFILE_MINOR_CODE	Too many open files	0x03u
TAO_EPIPE_MINOR_CODE	Broken pipe	0x04u
TAO_ECONNREFUSED_MINOR_CODE	Connection refused	0x05u
TAO_ENOENT_MINOR_CODE	No such file or directory	0x06u
TAO_EBADF_MINOR_CODE	Bad file descriptor	0x07u
TAO_ENOSYS_MINOR_CODE	Function not implemented	0x08u
TAO_EPERM_MINOR_CODE	Operation not permitted	0x09u
TAO_EAFNOSUPPORT_MINOR_CODE	Protocol family not supported	0x0au
TAO_EAGAIN_MINOR_CODE	Resource temporarily not available	0x0bu
TAO_ENOMEM_MINOR_CODE	Not enough space	0x0cu
TAO_EACCES_MINOR_CODE	Permission denied	0x0du
TAO_EFAULT_MINOR_CODE	Bad address	0x0eu
TAO_EBUSY_MINOR_CODE	Device or resource busy	0x0fu
TAO_EEXIST_MINOR_CODE	File exists	0x10u
TAO_EINVAL_MINOR_CODE	Invalid argument	0x11u
TAO_ECOMM_MINOR_CODE	Communication error on send	0x12u
TAO_ECONNRESET_MINOR_CODE	Connection reset	0x13u
TAO_ENOTSUP_MINOR_CODE	Operation not supported	0x14u

Known Issues

The Custom Servant Dispatch framework is a non-standard TAO ORB extension feature designed to allow users to plug-in their own strategies for the dispatch of request to servants. It is supplied with a reference implementation: the CSD Thread Pool Strategy. The framework and reference implementation are contained in the libraries libTAO_CSD_Framework.so and libTAO_CSD_ThreadPool.so respectively. It does not form part of the ORB core. The framework and reference implementation were designed only for use in specific restricted use cases and their use adversely effects CORBA compliance in a number of areas. These include non compliance with server side request context handling (PICurrent; POACurrent; etc.). Serious problems can also occur relating to server side ORB memory management if application servers attempt to utilise conventional CORBA shutdown methods in a typical manner. Users should be aware that using this feature may require them to modify their applications extensively to accomodate the framework's limitations. In the light of this, we advise that users planning to employ this feature first consult PrismTech support for further details and to discuss the advisability of their doing so.
On Solaris 8 Source Code Using Certain pthread Structures Defined in sys/types.h may Fail to Compile
If you are attempting to use OpenFusion TAO on a version of Solaris 8 that is affected by the Sun issue, then you will experience problems. Please upgrade to a Solaris 8 patch that is not affected by the issue.
When using tao_ifr to add idl to the interface repository on Windows NT with Microsoft Visual C++, you need to have the following in your path:

<TAO Installation dir>\bin

<TAO Installation dir>\lib

<Microsoft Visual Studio dir>\vc98\bin

<Microsoft Visual Studio dir>\Common\MSDev98\bin

where <TAO Installation dir> is the path to the TAO installation directory and <Microsoft Visual Studio dir> is the path to the installation of Microsoft Developer Studio. This is necesary because tao_ifr makes use of the cl.exe C++ preprocessor which is in the <Microsoft Visual Studio dir>\vc98\bin directory, which in turn uses dlls which reside in the <Microsoft Visual Studio dir>\Common\MSDev98\bin directory.
Use of ORB::create_operation_list operation will require the TAO_IFR_Client library to be linked into a program. If the TAO_IFR_Client is not linked a NO_IMPLEMENT exception will be raised if ORB::create_operation_list is invoked.
The examples do not build for a Microsoft Visual C++ V6.0 debug distribution.
The gcc 3.2 compiler fails to compile generated code for IDL containing fixed size arrays. The gcc 3.2.1 compiler fixes this problem (except on MontaVista Linux release 3.0). This was identified during interoperability testing of OpenFusion TAO releases.

UTF-16 Wide Characters / Wide String Interoperability. (Bug ID 00RE)

Issue 1: UTF-16 strings are being marshalled and demarshalled incorrectly. On little endian platforms little endian encoding is employed without an appropriate byte order marker being used. Characters within incoming strings are assumed to be encoded as per the byte order of the encapsulating stream. These are both in contravention of section "15.3.1.6 Character Types" of the CORBA 3.0 specification.

Issue 2: No account is taken of the byte order of an input stream when decoding a wide character type. Wide character passing between platforms with differing endian setting results in corrupted data.

Table Key:

TAO-BF = any version of TAO before bug fix OORE.
TAO-AF = any version of TAO after bug fix OORE.
JacORB = JacORB on any platform.
LE = TAO on a little endian platform, e.g. Linux / Windows.
BE = TAO on a big endian platform, e.g. Solaris.
-> = client/server direction wchar/wstring is passed.
OK / Broken = indicates that what is received is intelligible or not.

Any version of TAO before bug fix 00RE.
Product	Direction	Product	Status
JacORB	->	TAO-BF LE	wstring OK, wchar Broken
JacORB	<->	TAO-BF BE	OK
TAO-BF LE	->	JacORB	Broken
TAO-BF LE	<->	TAO-BF BE	OK
TAO-BF LE	<->	TAO-BF BE	wstring OK, wchar Broken
TAO-BF BE	<->	TAO-BF BE	OK

Any version of TAO after bug fix 00RE.
Product	Direction	Product	Status
JacORB	->	TAO-AF LE	OK
JacORB	<->	TAO-AF BE	OK
TAO-AF LE	->	JacORB	OK
TAO-AF LE	<->	TAO-AF BE	OK
TAO-AF LE	<->	TAO-AF BE	OK
TAO-AF BE	<->	TAO-AF BE	OK

Interoperability of TAO prior to and post bug fix 00RE.
Product	Direction	Product	Status
TAO-AF LE	<->	TAO-BF LE	Broken
TAO-AF BE	<->	TAO-BF BE	OK
TAO-AF LE	->	TAO-BF BE	Broken
TAO-AF BE	<-	TAO-BF LE	wstring OK, wchar Broken
TAO-AF LE	<-	TAO-BF BE	Broken
TAO-AF BE	->	TAO-BF LE	wstring OK, wchar Broken

Memory mapped IFR persistence doesn't work on RedHat Linux. (Internal issue TAO#453)

The memory mapped IFR persistence mechanism (-p service option) has been discovered to have incompatibilities with the RedHat Enterprise Server 4 kernel libraries. These consistently result in memory corruption and crashes of the service. There have also been reports of problems on Fedora Core systems and earlier versions of RedHat Enterprise Linux. The problem occurs outside of ACE / TAO. We strongly recommend that this persistence option is not use with this operating system. Please use the flat file persistence mechanism instead (-f option) as this mechanism is more stable.

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