Class TypeCode

public abstract class TypeCode
extends Object
implements IDLEntity

A container for information about a specific CORBA data type.

TypeCode objects are used:

• in the Dynamic Invocation Interface -- to indicate the types of the actual arguments or the type of the return value.
  NamedValue objects are used to represent arguments and return values. One of their components is an Any object, which in turn has as one of its components a TypeCode object.
• by an Interface Repository to represent the type specifications that are part of many OMG IDL declarations

The representation of a TypeCode object is opaque, but abstractly, a TypeCode object consists of:

• a kind field, which is set to an instance of the class TCKind
• zero or more additional fields appropriate for the particular kind. For example, the TypeCode object describing the OMG IDL type 1ong has kind TCKind.tk_long and no additional fields. The TypeCode describing OMG IDL type sequence<boolean, 10> has a kind field with the value TCKind.tk_sequence and also fields with the values boolean and 10 for the type of sequence elements and the length of the sequence.

TypeCode objects can be obtained in various ways:

1. from a call to the method Any.insert_X, where X is a basic IDL type. This method creates a TypeCode object for type X and assigns it to the Any object's type field.
2. from invocations of methods in the ORB class

   For example, the following creates a TypeCode object for a string with a maximum of 30 characters:

   org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode tcString = orb.create_string_tc(30);

   The following creates a TypeCode object for an array of five strings:

   org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode tcArray = orb.create_array_tc(
                                          5, TCKind.tk_string);

   The following creates a TypeCode object for an interface named "Account":

   org.omg.CORBA.TypeCode tcInterface = orb.create_interface_tc(
                                                    "thisId", "Account");

3. as the return value from the _type method in Holder classes for user-defined IDL types. These Holder classes are generated by the idltojava compiler.
4. from a CORBA Interface Repository

Most of the methods in the class TypeCode are accessors, and the information contained in a TypeCode object is specific to a particular type. Therefore, methods must be invoked only on the kind of type codes to which they apply. If an accessor method tries to access information from an inappropriate kind of type code, it will throw the exception TypeCodePackage.BadKind. For example, if the method discriminator_type is called on anything other than a union, it will throw BadKind because only unions have a discriminator. The following list shows which methods apply to which kinds of type codes:

These methods may be invoked on all TypeCode kinds:

• equal
• kind

These methods may be invoked on objref, struct, union, enum, alias, exception, value, value_box, native, and abstract_interface:

• id
• name

These methods may be invoked on struct, union, enum, and exception:

• member_count
• member_name

These methods may be invoked on struct, union, and exception:

• member_type(int index)

These methods may be invoked on union:

• member_label
• discriminator_type
• default_index

These methods may be invoked on string, sequence, and array:

• length

These methods may be invoked on alias, sequence, array, and value_box:

• content_type

Unlike other CORBA pseudo-objects, TypeCode objects can be passed as general IDL parameters.

The methods parameter and param_count, which are deprecated, are not mapped.

Java IDL extends the CORBA specification to allow all operations permitted on a struct TypeCode to be permitted on an exception TypeCode as well.

Constructors

TypeCode

public TypeCode()

Methods

equal

public abstract boolean equal(TypeCode tc)

Compares this TypeCode object with the given one, testing for equality. TypeCode objects are equal if they are interchangeable and give identical results when TypeCode operations are applied to them.

Parameters:

tc - the TypeCode object to compare against

Returns:

true if the type codes are equal; false otherwise

equivalent

public abstract boolean equivalent(TypeCode tc)

Parameters:

tc - the typecode to compare with this typecode

Returns:

true if the given typecode is equivalent to this typecode; false otherwise

get_compact_typecode

public abstract TypeCode get_compact_typecode()

Strips out all optional name and member name fields, but leaves all alias typecodes intact.

Returns:

a TypeCode object with optional name and member name fields stripped out, except for alias typecodes, which are left intact

See Also:

CORBA package comments for unimplemented features

kind

public abstract TCKind kind()

Returns:

the TCKind instance indicating the value of the kind field of this TypeCode object

id

public abstract String id()
                   throws BadKind

Returns:

the RepositoryId for this TypeCode object or an empty string if there is no RepositoryID

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind ofTypeCode object

name

public abstract String name()
                     throws BadKind

Returns:

the name identifying this TypeCode object or an empty string

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind ofTypeCode object

member_count

public abstract int member_count()
                          throws BadKind

Returns:

the number of members constituting the type described by this TypeCode object

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

member_name

public abstract String member_name(int index)
                            throws BadKind,
                                   Bounds

Parameters:

index - index of the member for which a name is being reqested

Returns:

simple name of the member identified by the index or an empty string

Throws:

Bounds - if the index is equal to or greater than the number of members constituting the type

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

member_type

public abstract TypeCode member_type(int index)
                              throws BadKind,
                                     Bounds

Parameters:

index - index of the member for which type information is begin requested

Returns:

the TypeCode object describing the member at the given index

Throws:

Bounds - if the index is equal to or greater than the number of members constituting the type

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

member_label

public abstract Any member_label(int index)
                          throws BadKind,
                                 Bounds

Parameters:

index - index of the union member for which the label is being requested

Returns:

an Any object describing the label of the requested union member or the zero octet for the default member

Throws:

Bounds - if the index is equal to or greater than the number of members constituting the union

BadKind - if the method is invoked on a non-union TypeCode object

discriminator_type

public abstract TypeCode discriminator_type()
                                     throws BadKind

Returns a TypeCode object describing all non-default member labels. The method discriminator_type can be invoked only on union TypeCode objects.

Returns:

the TypeCode object describing the non-default member labels

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on a non-union TypeCode object

default_index

public abstract int default_index()
                           throws BadKind

Returns:

the index of the default member, or -1 if there is no default member

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on a non-union TypeCode object

length

public abstract int length()
                    throws BadKind

Returns:

the bound for strings and sequences, or the number of elements for arrays

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

content_type

public abstract TypeCode content_type()
                               throws BadKind

Returns:

a TypeCode object representing the element type for sequences and arrays, the original type for aliases, or the boxed type for boxed valuetypes.

Throws:

BadKind - if the method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

fixed_digits

public abstract short fixed_digits()
                            throws BadKind

Returns the number of digits in the fixed type described by this TypeCode object. For example, the typecode for the number 3000.275d could be fixed<7,3>, where 7 is the precision and 3 is the scale.

Returns:

the total number of digits

Throws:

BadKind - if this method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

fixed_scale

public abstract short fixed_scale()
                           throws BadKind

Returns the scale of the fixed type described by this TypeCode object. A positive number indicates the number of digits to the right of the decimal point. For example, the number 3000d could have the typecode fixed<4,0>, where the first number is the precision and the second number is the scale. A negative number is also possible and adds zeroes to the left of the decimal point. In this case, fixed<1,-3>, could be the typecode for the number 3000d.

Returns:

the scale of the fixed type that this TypeCode object describes

Throws:

BadKind - if this method is invoked on an inappropriate kind of TypeCode object

member_visibility

public abstract short member_visibility(int index)
                                 throws BadKind,
                                        Bounds

Returns the constant that indicates the visibility of the member at the given index. This operation can only be invoked on non-boxed value TypeCode objects.

Parameters:

index - an int indicating the index into the value

Returns:

either PRIVATE_MEMBER.value or PUBLIC_MEMBER.value

Throws:

BadKind - if this method is invoked on a non-value type TypeCode object

Bounds - if the given index is out of bounds

See Also:

CORBA package comments for unimplemented features

type_modifier

public abstract short type_modifier()
                             throws BadKind

Returns a constant indicating the modifier of the value type that this TypeCode object describes. The constant returned must be one of the following: VM_NONE.value, VM_ABSTRACT.value, VM_CUSTOM.value, or VM_TRUNCATABLE.value,

Returns:

a constant describing the value type that this TypeCode object describes

Throws:

BadKind - if this method is invoked on a non-value type TypeCode object

See Also:

CORBA package comments for unimplemented features

concrete_base_type

public abstract TypeCode concrete_base_type()
                                     throws BadKind

Returns the TypeCode object that describes the concrete base type of the value type that this TypeCode object describes. Returns null if it doesn't have a concrete base type.

Returns:

the TypeCode object that describes the concrete base type of the value type that this TypeCode object describes

Throws:

BadKind - if this method is invoked on a non-boxed value type TypeCode object

See Also:

CORBA package comments for unimplemented features