Preface

This guide gets you started building CORBA applications for Oracle8i. It includes many code examples to help you develop your application.

Who Should Read This Guide?

Anyone developing server-side CORBA applications for Oracle8i will benefit from reading this guide. Written especially for programmers, it will also be of value to architects, systems analysts, project managers, and others interested in network-centric database applications. To use this guide effectively, you must have a working knowledge of Java and Oracle8i. This guide assumes that you have some familiarity with CORBA See "Suggested Reading" for moreinformation on CORBA concepts.

How This Guide Is Organized

This guide consists of the following chapters and appendices:

Chapter 1, "Overview", presents a brief overview of the CORBA development model from an Oracle8i perspective.

Chapter 2, "Getting Started", describes techniques for developing CORBA server objects that run in the Oracle8i data server.

Chapter 3, "Configuring IIOP Applications" describes how to configure for your CORBA applications.

Chapter 4, "JNDI Connections and Session IIOP Service" describes how to use JNDI and sessions within your CORBA applications.

Chapter 5, "Advanced CORBA Programming" details how to program your CORBA application beyond the simple example presented in Chapter 2.

Chapter 6, "IIOP Security" covers how to implement security within your CORBA application.

Chapter 7, "Transaction Handling", documents the transaction interfaces that you can use when developing your CORBA applications.

Appendix A, "Example Code: CORBA", includes examples of CORBA applications. Each example contains both the Java and IDL source code.

Appendix B, "Comparing the Oracle8i JServer and VisiBroker VBJ ORBs", discusses some of the fundamental differences between developing CORBA applications for VisiBroker and the Oracle8i JServer.

Appendix C, "Abbreviations and Acronyms", supplies a list of acronyms.

Notational Conventions

This guide follows these conventions:

Italic	Italic font denotes terms being defined for the first time, words being emphasized, error messages, and book titles.
Courier	Courier font denotes Java program names, file names, path names, and Internet addresses.

Java code examples follow these conventions:

{ }	Braces enclose a block of statements.
//	A double slash begins a single-line comment, which extends to the end of a line.
/* */	A slash-asterisk and an asterisk-slash delimit a multi-line comment, which can span multiple lines.
...	An ellipsis shows that statements or clauses irrelevant to the discussion were left out.
lower case	Lower case is used for keywords and for one-word names of variables, methods, and packages.
UPPER CASE	Upper case is used for names of constants (static final variables) and for names of supplied classes that map to built-in SQL datatypes.
Mixed Case	Mixed case is used for names of classes and interfaces and for multi-word names of variables, methods, and packages. The names of classes and interfaces begin with an upper-case letter. In all multi-word names, the second and succeeding words also begin with an upper-case letter.

Suggested Reading

Programming with VisiBroker, by D. Pedrick et al. (John Wiley and Sons, 1998) provides a good introduction to CORBA development from the VisiBroker point of view.

Core Java by Cornell & Horstmann, second edition, Volume II (Prentice-Hall, 1997) has good presentations of several Java concepts relevant to EJB. For example, this book documents the Remote Method Invocation (RMI) interface.

Online Sources

There are many useful online sources of information about Java. For example, you can view or download guides and tutorials from the Sun Microsystems home page on the Web:

http://www.sun.com

Another popular Java Web site is:

http://www.gamelan.com

For Java API documentation, see:

http://www.javasoft.com

Related Publications

Occasionally, this guide refers you to the following Oracle publications for more information:

Oracle8i Application Developer's Guide - Fundamentals

Oracle8i Java Developer's Guide

Oracle8i JDBC Developer's Guide and Reference

Oracle8i SQL Reference

Oracle8i SQLJ Developer's Guide and Reference

Your Comments Are Welcome

We appreciate your comments and suggestions. In fact, your opinions are the most important feedback we receive. We encourage you to use the Reader's Comment Form at the front of this book. You can also send comments to the following address:

Documentation Manager, Java Products Group

Oracle Corporation

500 Oracle Parkway

Redwood Shores, CA 94065

USA

email: [e-mail]

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