ASN.1 / XML Software Tools from Objective Systems

Thank you for downloading the XBinder XML schema compiler software. XBinder is an XML data-binding tool for working with XML schema definitions. It creates compatible C or C++ structures/classes and encoders and decoders to allow rapid translation between XML documents and C or C++ program variables. This release generates C or C++ code that can encode/decode to and from XML.

This package contains the XBinder compiler executable, run-time libraries, documentation and sample programs.

Release Notes

This release of XBinder adds the following new capabilities:

Use of a Pull-Parser for improved XML decoding: XML C and C++ decoder generation has been changed to use a custom pull-parser as the default parser instead of a third-party SAX parser. This provides better performance and provides a more logical model for data binding applications due to the fact that it is easier to maintain state information. It is still possible to generate SAX-based decoders through the use of the -sax command-line option.
Capability to encode and decode to/from DOM: An abstract DOM interface has been added which makes it possible to encode/decode to/from DOM instead of directly to XML. This makes use of DOM possible with XBinder for operations such as searching or generic node manipulation.
Generation of derivation types for xsi:type handling: Special derivation types are generated which collect all the possible derivations in complexContent types. These are added to the generated code and allow the formatting and parsing of xsi:type attributes to allow the type of an element to be selected at run time.
Addition of copy constructors and deep-copy for all C++ classes: The C++ memory management interface has been greatly simplified such that all assignments now cause a deep-copy of the data to be done. This makes object destruction much more predictable in complex cases. The previous model made deep-copy an option through an 'ownMemory' flag which has been eliminated.
libxml2 source code and build scripts added: The source code for the open source libxml2 library is now part of the XBinder package. This makes it possible to use the libxml2 parser as a SAX/DOM parser without having to install a separate software package.
Improved XML error location information: The specification of errors within an XML document has been improved to include the full pathname of the element when an error occurs.

Compatibility

In an ongoing effort to improve the product, changes have been made in how code is generated in some cases. Users of previous versions of the compiler can achieve backward compatility with their existing code bases by using the compiler '-compat' switch (for example, '-compat 1.0' will generate code compatible with the 1.0 version of the compiler).

The following is a summary of changes that were made in code generation for this release:

The generated name of the type for global elements and attributes with anonymous type definitions has been changed to <name>_ELEM or <name>_ATTR respectively. The old format was _<name>. This disambiguates the names when a specification contains global elements and attributes with the same name.
Code generated from a WSDL specification was changed to output to source files with a 'WSDL' suffix. This was to keep WSDL and XSD files separate when a combination of files with the same names and different extensions (.xsd and .wsdl) were used.

Documentation

The XBinder C/C++ User's Manual and Runtime Reference Manual are available in the doc subdirectory of the installation. These manuals are also available online in HTML and PDF formats at the following URL:

http://www.obj-sys.com/manuals.shtml#xbinder1.2

Windows Installation

The system requirements for this software are as follows:

Microsoft Windows operating system (Windows 95 or later)
Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or .NET, Borland C++ v5.5 or higger, or GNU gcc 3.2 or higher.

The steps to install XBinder on a Windows system are as follows:

Download the XBinder package for Windows. This is located at the following URL:

http://www.obj-sys.com/xbv12xDL/xbinder.shtml

XBinder for Windows is packaged in a self-extracting executable file format. To install, all that should be necessary is to double-click this file after downloading and then following the setup wizard instructions from that point.
This release of this product has an associated license file that allows the product to operate on licensed host computers. The evaluation version uses a time-limited license that expires after the evaluation period (typically 30 to 45 days). After installation is complete, this license file must be installed to allow the product to operate. This was sent in the osyslic.txt file that was attached to the E-mail message that was sent at the time the product was downloaded. If you did not receive a license file, please contact us.
The osyslic.txt file must be copied to a location where the compiler can find it. This can be done in one of the following ways:

a. The file can be copied into any of the directories specified within your PATH environment variable (copying to the c:\windows directory works on most systems), or

b. The file can be copied to a different directory and an environment variable named 'OSLICDIR' created to point at this directory location.

c. The file can be copied into the same directory as the XBinder executable file (xbinder.exe). This would be the bin subdirectory of the installation root directory.

The compiler should now be operational. The following command can be executed from a command prompt to verify operation:

<rootdir>\bin\xbinder

Linux/UNIX Installation

The system requirements for this software are as follows:

Linux (x86), Solaris (sparc or x86), or HP-UX (PA-RISC or Itanium)
GNU gcc 3.2 or higher or native C or C++ compiler

The steps to install XBinder on a Linux/UNIX system are as follows:

Download one of the XBinder distribution package files for Linux or UNIX. The available packages can be found at this URL:

http://www.obj-sys.com/xbv12xDL/xbinder.shtml

XBinder for Linux/UNIX is packaged in a gzipped .tar file. To install, unzip the file (gunzip) and untar (tar xf) in any directory. Note that in order to run the sample programs, write access to the sample directories is required, so make sure that you have write access to the base directory where the package is installed.
This release of XBinder has an associated license file that must be installed to allow the compiler to operate. See the section on Windows installation for details on installing this license file.

The compiler should now be operational. The following command can be executed from a command prompt to verify operation:

<rootdir>/bin/xbinder

Contents of the Release

The following subdirectories contain the following files (note: <installdir> refers to the installation directory that was specified during the installation process):

<installdir>/bin/xbinder.exe: The command-line compiler executable file. This program is invoked on XML schema source files to generate C encode/decode structures and functions. It is recommended you modify your PATH environment variable to include <installdir>/bin to allow the compiler executable to be run from anywhere.
<installdir>/bin/XBinderGUI.exe: A graphical user interface (GUI) wizard program designed to make file selection and specification of user options easier. This wizard will collect all information required to do a compilation and then invoke the command-line version of the compiler with the selected options.
<installdir>/doc: This directory contains the XBinder C/C++ Users and Runtime Reference Manual PDF documentation files.
<installdir>/c/lib/*.dll
<installdir>/c/lib/*.lib: The XBinder C run-time library files. These contain the low-level XML encode/decode and common runtime functions. For Windows, there is a dynamic link library (.dll) and standard library file (.lib) for linking with the DLL. There is also a static library for direct linkage to the object modules (this is the library file with the '_a.lib' suffix). The static library included in the evaluation version is not thread-safe. A thread-safe version can be provided upon request. For Linux/UNIX, there is a static library (.a) and shared object library (.so or .sl).
<installdir>/cpp/lib/*.dll
<installdir>/cpp/lib/*.lib: The XBinder C++ run-time library files. These are the same as the C libraries except that they contain the compiled built-in C++ classes as well.
<installdir>/c/sample
<installdir>/cpp/sample: The sample directories contain sample programs illustrating the use of the compiler. Most sample programs contain a writer and a reader program. The writer encodes a sample XML data record and writes it to a disk file. The reader reads the encoded XML data from the file, decodes it, and then prints the results of the decode operation.
<installdir>/rtxsrc/*
<installdir>/rtxmlsrc/*: The installation run-time source directories contain the header files required to compile the compiler generated code.
<installdir>/expatsrc/*: The XML parser run-time source directories contain the source files for the Expat C XML parser which is the default parser used with the XBinder XML runtime.
<installdir>/libxml2src/*: The libxml2 parser run-time source directories contain the source files for the libxml2 C XML parser. This is an optional SAX parser that can be configured to work with XBinder.
<installdir>/xbgui/*: XBinder GUI subdirectory. This directory contains the source code and build files for the XBinderGUI. This code in this subdirectory is licensed under the LGPL; therefore, users can modify it to get it running on their target platform. The code makes use of the Trolltech Qt (tm) GUI building software.
<installdir>/xsd/*: Sample XML schema files. These are public schemas taken from large XML schema-based standards. They are used by some of the sample programs to demonstrate XBinder's ability to compiler large, complex schemas.

Getting Started

XBinder contains a Graphical User Interface Wizard that makes specification of options to the compiler easier. The installation procedure should have provided a Start Menu option and Desktop icon for activating this wizard. On Linux/UNIX, the wizard executable is located in the bin subdirectory along with the XBinder command-line executable. The GUI can be started by simply running the GUI executable from the command-line.

To run a simple test of the command-line version of the compiler from Windows or UNIX, do the following:

Open an MS-DOS or other command shell window.
Change directory (cd) to the employee sample directory: c/sample/employee.
Execute the nmake (Windows) or make (Linux/UNIX) utility program:

nmake

(note: nmake is a make utility program that comes with the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler. It may be necessary to execute the batch file vcvars32.bat that comes with Visual C++ in order to set up the environment variables to use this utility).

This should cause the compiler to be invoked to compile the employee.xsd sample file. It will then invoke the Visual C++ compiler to compile the generated C file and the test drivers. The result should be a writer.exe and reader.exe program file which, when invoked, will encode and decode a sample employee record.

Invoke writer from the command line:

writer

This will generate an encoded record and write it to a disk file. By default, the file generated is message.xml. The test program has a number of command line switches that control the encoding. To view the switches, enter writer ? and a usage display will be shown.

Invoke reader from the command line:

reader

This will read the disk file that was just created by the writer program and decode its contents. The resulting decoded data will be written to standard output. The test program has a number of command line switches that control the encoding. To view the switches, enter reader ? and a usage display will be shown.

Known Problems and Issues

The XBinder compiler is designed for use with the type of XML messages used in the XML infoset ( http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset). It is defined for XML messaging applications such as the messages exchanged in a SOAP protocol data exchange as opposed to more free-form applications such as XML document models or database applications.

The following features defined in the 2001 edition of XML Schema are currently not supported:

Mixed-mode content model
Identity Constraints (xsd:unique)
Redefinition of Schema Components (xsd:redefine)
final and block properties
DTD's

It is our desire to make a practical XML data binding tool that can handle the syntax that people use, not something that can handle every possible syntax. So we are interested in hearing what you are using in practice that doesn't work. In other words, if you create overly complex syntax in order to try and break this tool, you probably will.

Reporting Problems

Report problems you encounter by sending E-mail to support@obj-sys.com. The preferred format of example programs is the same as the sample programs. Please provide a writer and reader and indicate where in the code the problem occurs.

If you have any further questions or comments on what you would like to see in the product or what is difficult to use or understand, please communicate them to us. Your feedback is important to us. Please let us know how it works out for you - either good or bad.