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Questions tagged [idl]

IDL, short for Interface Description Language, is a language used to describe a software component's public interface in a programming-language-independent manner. (Not to be confused with the [idl-programming-language] tag, which is for a language used for scientific and medical image analysis)

As described on Wikipedia:

An interface description language or interface definition language (IDL), is a specification language used to describe a software component's application programming interface (API). IDLs describe an interface in a language-independent way, enabling communication between software components that do not share one language. For example, between those written in C++ and those written in Java.

IDLs are commonly used in remote procedure call software. In these cases the machines at either end of the link may be using different operating systems and computer languages. IDLs offer a bridge between the two different systems.

Software systems based on IDLs include Sun's ONC RPC, The Open Group's Distributed Computing Environment, IBM's System Object Model, the Object Management Group's CORBA (which implements OMG IDL, an IDL based on DCE/RPC), Mozilla's XPCOM, Facebook's Thrift and WSDL for Web services.

Web specifications use a special form of IDL called WebIDL: https://heycam.github.io/webidl/

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What is IDL?

What is meant by IDL? I have googled it, and found out it stands for Interface Definition Language, which is used for interface definition for components. But, in practice, what is the purpose of IDL? Does Microsoft use it?
g.revolution
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What does idl attribute mean in the WHATWG html5 standard document?

While reading over the WHATWG's HTML5 - A technical specification for Web developers I see many references such as: Reflecting content attributes in IDL attributes Some IDL attributes are defined to reflect a particular content attribute. This…
Sinthia V
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How to associate constants with an interface in C#?

Some languages let you associate a constant with an interface: A Java example A PhP example The W3C abstract interfaces do the same, for example: // Introduced in DOM Level 2: interface CSSValue { // UnitTypes const unsigned short …
ChrisW
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Convert Interface IDL file to C#

I have an interface defined in an IDL file that I would like to use in C#. Is there a way to convert the IDL to something usable in C#?
Jon Tackabury
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Including a .idl file in a C++ project

I'm building a project in C++ which uses DirectShow's video capture library to connect to a camera. The video card manufacturer (BlackMagic) has provided .idl (Interface Definition Language) files which add new capture graphs to the standard…
wyatt
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Machine-readable (WebIDL) reference for JavaScript / HTML5?

I'm looking for a machine-readable reference of JavaScript classes (members, methods, parameters...), especially related to the HTML5 standard (canvas, storage, etc.). All I have found so far is the specs on the W3C site, which include a part of the…
Eric Grange
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IDL for JSON REST/RPC interface

We are designing a fairly complex REST API, in which most of the I/O are JSON encoded objects with a specific structure. One challenge we have found is to document the API in such a way that makes it easier for clients to post correct input and…
Jeroen Ooms
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What are oaidl.idl and ocidl.idl for?

A default ATL Simple Object has the following at the top of its IDL file: import "oaidl.idl"; import "ocidl.idl"; What are these files for, and how do I know when I need to import them? Is there any documentation which describes what is defined in…
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How do I share a constant between C# and C++ code?

I'm writing two processes using C# and WCF for one and C++ and WWSAPI for the second. I want to be able to define the address being used for communication between the two in a single place and have both C# and C++ use it. Is this possible? The…
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How to get IDL from a .NET assembly (or how to to convert TLB to IDL) in a command line?

We have a .NET assembly (Aspose.Words actually) and we want clients to use it from COM clients without much hassle. So we ship a .TLB with the assembly so the client can use it from languages such as C++ or Delphi and don't bother extracting .TLB…
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Differences between [in, out] and [out, retval] in COM IDL definitions

In some of the IDL I work with I have noticed that there are 2 conventions for marking return values in methods - [in, out] and [out, retval]. It appears that [in, out] is used when there are multiple return values, for example: HRESULT MyMethod( …
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Java IDL : servertool does not register and hangs

I am running CORBA Persistent Object implementation in Java IDL as in Java IDL: The "Hello World" Example I followed exact procedure in above article I used servertool for registering Persistent server as shown in example . but when i tried to…
ajduke
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How do I convert a .tlb file to headers and implementation files?

I'm trying to convert mscorlib.tlb. It normally used in C++ like this: #import "mscorlib.tlb" raw_interfaces_only \ high_property_prefixes("_get","_put","_putref") \ rename("ReportEvent",…
jcao219
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WebKit JS bindings: step by step how to

I have to admit I'm new to WebKit so asking the right question is not that easy. What I have is the WebKit from WebKit.org. It updates, builds, I can debug - I got it working on Windows. What I'm interested in is how to generate the stub files for…
takanokage
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Conversion between C structs (C++ POD) and google protobufs?

I have code that currently passes around a lot of (sometimes nested) C (or C++ Plain Old Data) structs and arrays. I would like to convert these to/from google protobufs. I could manually write code that converts between these two formats, but it…
Andrew Wagner
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