"This article explores how I have added some useful
extensions to an open-source protocol analyzer in order to allow
the extraction of OMG IDL (interface definition language) defined
data types from TCP/IP traffic (using GIOP/IIOP). I also discuss
the development and use of a helpful tool (idl2eth) that can take
your own OMG IDL file(s) and generate protocol analyzer plugins,
and lead you through the steps of creating your own plugin for the
CORBA project you are working on.
So, if you are designing or debugging a CORBA application that
is using GIOP/IIOP, you can take the CORBA IDL file(s) and generate
plugins that will decode your data and show you what it looks like
"on the wire".
This would be most useful for debugging, say, traffic between a
client and server or for learning how OMG IDL data types are
marshaled via CDR (common data representation) Transfer Syntax onto
an octet stream. It also would aid ORB interoperability testing,
especially considering the number of new ORB implementations that
are appearing lately."
