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COM/CORBA interworking covers a wide variety of software activities and a wide range of products. This specification is not
intended to cover all possible products that facilitate or use COM and CORBA mechanisms together. This Interworking specification
defines three distinct categories of software products, each of which are subject to a distinct form of compliance. The categories
are:
• Interworking Solutions
• Mapping Solutions
• Mapped Components
17.10.1.1 Interworking solutions
Products that facilitate the development of software that will bidirectionally transform COM and/or Automation invocations
into isomorphic CORBA invocations (and vice versa) in a generic way are Interworking Solutions. An example of this kind of
software would be a language processor that parses OMG IDL specifications and automatically generates code for libraries that
map the OMG IDL interfaces into Automation interfaces and which also parses Automation ODL and automatically generates code
for libraries that map the OLE Automation interfaces into CORBA interfaces. Another example would be a generic bridging component
that, based on run-time interface descriptions, interpretively maps both COM and CORBA invocations onto CORBA and COM objects
(respectively).
A product of this type is a compliant Interworking Solution if the resulting mapped interfaces are transformed as described
in this specification, and if the mapped interfaces support all of the features and interface components required by this
specification.
A compliant Interworking Solution must designate whether it is a compliant COM/CORBA Interworking Solution and/or a compliant
Automation/CORBA Interworking Solution.
17.10.1.2 Mapping solutions
Products that facilitate the development of software that will unidirectionally transform COM and/or Automation invocations
into isomorphic CORBA invocations (and vice versa) in a generic way are described as Mapping Solutions. An example of this
kind of software would be a language processor that parses OMG IDL specifications and automatically generates code for libraries
that map the OMG IDL interfaces into Automation interfaces. Another example would be a generic bridging component that interpretively
maps Automation invocations onto CORBA objects based on run-time interface descriptions.
A product of this type will be considered a compliant Mapping Solution if the resulting mapped interfaces are transformed
as described in this specification, and if the mapped interfaces support all of the features and interface components required
in this specification.
A compliant Mapping Solution must designate whether it is a compliant COM to CORBA Mapping Solution, a compliant Automation
to CORBA Mapping Solution, a compliant CORBA to COM Mapping Solution, and/or a compliant CORBA to Automation Mapping Solution.
17.10.1.3 Mapped components
Applications, components or libraries that expose a specific, fixed set of interfaces mapped from CORBA to COM or Automation
(and/or vice versa) are described as Mapped Components. An example of this kind of product would be a set of business objects
defined and implemented in CORBA that also expose isomorphic Automation interfaces.
This type of product will be considered a compliant Mapped Component if the interfaces it exposes are mapped as described
in this specification, and if the mapped interfaces support all of the features and interface components required in this
specification.