Common Desktop Environment: ToolTalk Messaging Overview

Toolkit Conventions

Most of the messaging conventions for the toolkit consist of descriptions of the standard ToolTalk message sets. This section describes conventions not related to any particular standard message set.

Table A-2 Messaging Toolkit Conventions

Field 

Description 

fileAttrib 

Indicates whether the file attribute of the message can or needs to be set. The ToolTalk service allows each message to refer to a file, and has a mechanism (called "file-scoping") for delivering messages to clients that are "interested in" the named file.  

opName 

The name of the operation or event (also called "op"). It is important that different tools use the same opName to mean the same thing. Unless a message is a standard one, its opName must be unique; for example, prefix the opName with Company_Product (such as Acme_HoarkTool_Hoark_My_Frammistat).

requiredArgs 

Arguments that must always be included in the message.  

optionalArgs 

Extra arguments that may be included in a message. Any optional arguments in a message must be in the specified order and must follow the required arguments.  

vtype argumentName 

A description of a particular argument. A vtype is a programmer-defined string that describes what kind of data a message argument contains. The ToolTalk service uses vtypes only for matching sent message instances with registered message patterns. Every vtype should by convention map to a single, well-known data type.