Mapping the Interface Description Language type model into C

The Interface Description Language (IDL) is a notation for describing the characteristics of data structures passed among collections of cooperating processes in a programming environment. The authors discuss a mapping from IDL to C data structures and macro definitions that supports the full language and is type safe and run-time efficient, but is not particularly compile-time efficient nor easy to use. They then propose that the mapping be performed in a preprocessor, thereby achieving efficiency and ease of use as well.<
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