This directory contains the source code of the pidl (Perl IDL) compiler. pidl.pl is the main file of pidl. Pidl works by building a parse tree from a .pidl file (a simple dump of it's internal parse tree) or a .idl file (a file format mostly like the IDL file format midl uses). The IDL file parser is in idl.yp (a yacc file converted to perl code by yapp) After a parse tree is present, pidl will call one of it's backends (which one depends on the options given on the command-line). Here is a list of current backends: -- Generic -- dump.pm - Converts the parse tree back to an IDL file validator.pm - Validates the parse tree -- DCE/RPC+NDR -- client.pm - Generates client call functions in C eparser.pm - Generates a parser for the ethereal network sniffer by applying regexes to the output of parser.pm swig.pm - Generates SWIG interface files (.i) header.pm - Generates a header file with structures parser.pm - Generates pull/push functions for parsing server.pm - Generates server side implementation in C template.pm - Generates stubs in C for server implementation -- COM / DCOM -- odl.pm - Generates IDL structures from ODL structures for use in the NDR parser generator dcom_proxy.pm - Generates proxy object for DCOM (client-side) dcom_stub.pm - Generates stub call handler for DCOM (server-side) com_header.pm - Generates header file for COM interface(s) -- Utility modules -- tables.pl - Generates a table of available interfaces from a list of IDL files util.pm - Misc utility functions used by *.pm and pidl.pl typelist.pm - Utility functions for keeping track of known types and their representation in C Tips for hacking on pidl: - Look at the pidl's parse tree by using the --keep option and looking at the generated .pidl file. - The various backends have a lot in common, if you don't understand how one implements something, look at the others - See pidl(1) and the documentation on midl - See 'info bison' and yapp(1) for information on the file format of idl.yp