Summary of RPC on Symbolics

[eyvind%hrp.no@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Eyvind Ness)]

Summary of discussion: the Symbolics RPC library.
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Q (eyvind@hrp.no): Are there any utilities corresponding to the Sun
RPC library functions CALLRPC and REGISTERRPC available on Symbolics
3600s running Genera 8.0?

A (mainly barmar@think.com): No. For 3600s, Symbolics RPC depends on
the optional IP/TCP and NFS software packages. In Genera 8.1, however,
this is no problem because IP/TCP and NFS are bundled with the
release.

---000---

Caveat: Although RPC functionality is unavailable (actually it's
incomplete, which is even worse) on 3600s with Genera 8.0 or older,
all RPC-related functions are documented in the Document Examiner and
in the Networking Manual.


Notes: The programmer interface to Symbolics RPC looks a bit
unfamiliar to Explorer and Unix programmers at first sight. However,
the functionality is the same. Below is a little example showing some
of the differences.

Example: Client stub for calling remotefunction(string) -> string.

Explorer:

(callrpc
  host-name                        ;e.g. "remulus"
  program-number                   ;e.g. #x20abcdef
  version-number                   ;e.g. 1
  procedure-number                 ;e.g. 1
  ':xdr-ascii-string
  locf-query
  ;; e.g (defvar query "user-id") and (defvar locf-query (locf query))
  ':xdr-ascii-string)


Symbolics:

(rpc:define-remote-module
  program-name                          ;symbol
  (:number program-number)              ;as above
  (:version version-number)             ;as above
  (:client :lisp))                      ;tells Genera to make client stub

(rpc:define-remote-entry
  procedure-name                        ;symbol
  program-name
  (:number procedure-number)
  (:arguments
    (query string))
  (:values
    (reply string)))

;;; example call:
(procedure-name 
  "query"
  :transport-agent
  (rpc:host-udp-transport-agent (net:parse-host host-name)))

;;; End of example.

Eyvind.

        |Eyvind Ness                    |Internet Email: eyvind@hrp.no
        |Research Scientist             |Phone: +47 9 183100
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