METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING AND EMPLOYING A RUN-TIME GENERATED STUB TO REFERENCE AN OBJECT IN OBJECT ORIENTED SYSTEMS

摘要

The method and apparatus for generating and employing a run-time generated stub to reference an object in an object oriented system. This method and apparatus represents in a first virtual machine a remote object implemented in a second virtual machine by employing a stub class. An object reference is sent by the second virtual machine and received by the first virtual machine. The object reference includes an interface descriptor that identifies the interface(s) of the remote object and an object handle that identifies the remote object. At run-time, the information associated with the remote object is transformed into a stub class that represents the remote object and implements only those interfaces identified by the interface descriptor and also defined by the first virtual machine. After the stub class is created, an instance of that stub class is generated and provided to the first virtual machine. In an alternative embodiment, an interface specific stub is created for each interface that is identified by the interface descriptor and defined by the first virtual machine. The interface specific stub is created at compile time. A delegator stub class is created at run-time that delegates to the interface specific stub(s).