OSF DCE Application Development Guide--Core Components

Writing Internationalized RPC Applications
19. The server stub next calls a new stub support routine that converts, based on the
code set identifying information from the client, the character data from the
server’s local code set to the network code set.
20. The server stub marshalls the converted output arguments and transmits them to
the client runtime along with code set identifying information.
21. The server initialization procedure also contains a call to a new RPC routine that
removes the code set information from the server entry in the name service
database if the server exits or is terminated.
22. The client stub is called, with the character data in network format and code set.
23. The client stub unmarshalls the output arguments.
24. The client stub next calls a new stub support routine that determines, based on the
code set identifying information passed by the server, whether the character data
needs to be converted from the network code set to the client’s local code set and,
if so, whether the buffer that currently holds the character data in the network
format and code set is large enough to hold the data once it is converted. If the
routine determines that conversion is necessary and a new buffer is required, it
calculates the size of that buffer and returns the value to the client stub.
25. The client stub next calls a new stub support routine that converts, based on the
code set identifying information, the character data from the code set used on the
network to the client’s local code set.
26. The client stub passes the data to the client in the local format and code set.
Note that the stub conversion routines do not implement code set conversion. Instead,
they call POSIX compliant iconv code set conversion routines, which are part of the
local operating system. As a result, if the platform to which DCE is ported does not
provide these POSIX conversion routines, DCE applications that run on this platform
cannot use the DCE RPC character and code set interoperability features.
15.3 Building an Application for Character and Code Set
Interoperability
An application programmer who wishes to design his or her RPC application for
character and code set interoperability performs the following steps:
1. Writes the interface definition file (.idl) to include constructs that will enable
automatic code set conversion during remote procedure execution.
2. Writes an associated attribute configuration file (.acf) for the interface that
includes ACF attributes that will enable automatic code set conversion during
remote procedure execution.
3. Writes the stub support routines that client and server stubs use to carry out
automatic code set conversion during a remote procedure call. You can omit this
step if you use the stub support routines supplied with DCE.
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