PLDI ' 97 Flick : A Flexible , Optimizing IDL

Interface deenition language (IDL) compilers generate \stub functions" that provide separate communicating processes with the abstraction of local object invocation or procedure call. Unfortunately, these compilers have not kept pace with recent advances in fast network technologies and component-based software design. Typical IDL compilers do little optimization because they assume that interprocess communication is an inherent bottleneck. Moreover, typical IDL compilers are \rigid" and limited to supporting only a single IDL, a xed mapping onto a target language, and a narrow range of data encodings and transport mechanisms. Flick, our new IDL compiler, addresses these problems. Flick applies concepts from general programming language compilers to bring both exibility and optimization to the domain of IDL compilation. Flick consists of three distinct stages which manipulate and communicate through exible intermediate representations. Through these representations Flick supports multiple IDL source languages, implements diverse transport mechanisms , and applies numerous optimizations to all of the code it generates. Flick-generated code typically runs between 1.2 and 5 times faster than code produced by traditional IDL compilers.