***********************************************************
***                                                     ***
***         AdaBroker : an IDL to Ada compiler          ***
***                                                     ***
***********************************************************

Installation :
--------------

- check that egcs and gnat are intalled on your system. Set your
  environnement variables so that g++ refers to egcs and gcc to gnat.

- create a symbolic link in AdaBroker, pointing to omniORB_2.7.1 (if
  you use another version of omniORB, update the config.mk file in
  AdaBroker/config). In any case, the link must be called `omniORB_2.7.1'.

- run 'make export'. It will produce AdaBroker libraries and
  adabroker executable. The installation procedure is similar to
  omniORB installation procedure. For instance, adabroker executable
  is installed in omniORB_2.7.1/bin/<platform>. Same thing for
  libraries and ali files which are installed in
  omniORB_2.7.1/lib/<platform>.

- go to AdaBroker/Examples directory and run 'make' to build examples.

- AdaBroker has been tested only with EGCS, but should work OK with most
  recent C++ compilers. However, we have had failure reports with GCC 2.8.1.
  This will be fixed as soon as GNAT is officially ported on EGCS.

Usage :
-------

  adabroker [ -i ] myinterface.idl creates several files :

- myinterface.ads, myinterface.adb : these files contain the mapping
  for user defined types (client and server side).

- myinterface-impl.ads, myinterface-impl.adb : these files are to be
  filled by the user. They contain the implementation of the
  server. They are generated only if the -i flag is specified.

- myinterface-proxy.ads, myinterface-proxy.adb : these files
  contain utilities to make proxy calls.

- myinterface-skel.ads, myinterface-skel.adb : these files
  contain utilities for the server-side implementation.

- myinterface-stream.ads, myinterface-stream.adb : they contain
  subprograms to marshall types according to the GIOP protocol.


Features :
----------

- Most of the CORBA features are implemented except dynamic
  invocation. This includes CORBA types, CORBA exceptions, forward
  declarations and multiple inheritance. The Ada tasking is also
  working with AdaBroker. AdaBroker/Examples provides
  several examples of the available features.

- This release has been successfully tested on Solaris. It has been
  reported to work on Linux (RedHat and Debian) with a home-built
  Ada and C++ compiler based on EGCS 1.1.1 and GNAT 3.11p.

- If you need to debug AdaBroker, you can create a file adabroker.opt in
  your current directory. This file should contain lines with package
  names you want to debug. For instance, corba.orb will enable debug
  messages from package CORBA.ORB. If you want to debug C++ files, you
  can set the environment variable TRACELEVEL to a given naturel depending
  on how much detailed you want the output to be.


Bug reports:
------------

If you find a bug and would like to submit fixes, please do so
indicating what release you use. We accept patch files. To produce
such a patch file, put your files in the AdaBroker directory and our
files in the directory AdaBroker.orig, and use the following command:

  diff --recursive --context AdaBroker.orig AdaBroker > patch_file

and send us the patch_file via E-mail at the address 

          adabroker-bugs@adabroker.eu.org

If your diff version do not understand the --recursive or --context
option, please use the GNU diffutils package which may be found on any
GNU archive (e.g. ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/gnu/).

Note that unified diff files (-u option of GNU diff) are also welcomed.


Mailing-lists:
--------------

Several mailing-lists have been created for discussions around AdaBroker:

  - adabroker@adabroker.eu.org: general discussions about AdaBroker
      To subscribe, send a mail to "adabroker-request@adabroker.eu.org"
      with the single line "subscribe" in the body (subject will be ignored)

  - adabroker-announce@adabroker.eu.org: low trafic mailing-list that will
      only carry important information about AdaBroker, such as new releases,
      beta test announces, etc.
      To subscribe, send a mail to
      "adabroker-announce-request@adabroker.eu.org" with the single line
      "subscribe" in the body (subject will be ignored)


Contributors:
-------------

AdaBroker has been developped since January, 1999 by the following
contributors:

* Fabien Azavant (azavant@enst.fr)
* Emmanuel Chavane (chavane@enst.fr)
* Jean-Marie Cottin (cottin@enst.fr)
* Laurent Kubler (kubler@enst.fr)
* Vincent Niebel (niebel@enst.fr)
* Laurent Pautet (pautet@enst.fr)
* Sebastien Ponce (ponce@enst.fr)
* Thomas Quinot (quinot@enst.fr)
* Frank Singhoff (singhoff@enst.fr)
* Samuel Tardieu (sam@enst.fr)