[An HTML version of this README file is available at the following URL

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html.

All software and documentation is available via both anonymous ftp and
the World Wide Web.]

THE ADAPTIVE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT (ACE)

An Object-Oriented Network Programming Toolkit

OVERVIEW OF ACE

The ADAPTIVE Communication Environment (ACE) is an object-oriented
network programming toolkit.  ACE encapsulates the following
user-level UNIX and Windows NT OS facilities via type-secure,
object-oriented interfaces:

        . IPC mechanisms 
                -- Internet- and UNIX-domain sockets, TLI, Named pipes
                (for UNIX and Windows NT) and STREAM pipes
        . Event multiplexing
                -- select() and poll()
        . Multi-threading and synchronization
                -- Solaris threads, POSIX Pthreads, and Win32 threads
        . Explicit dynamic linking facilities 
                -- e.g., dlopen/dlsym/dlclose
        . Memory-mapped files
        . System V IPC 
                -- shared memory, semaphores, message queues
        . Sun RPC 
                -- GNU rpc++, written by Michael Lipp

In addition, ACE contains a higher-level network programming framework
that integrates and enhances the lower-level C++ wrappers.  This
framework supports the dynamic configuration of concurrent network
daemons composed of application services.  This framework contains the
following class categories:

        . The Reactor
        . The Service Configurator
        . The ADAPTIVE Service Executive

ACE is currently being used in many commercial products including the
Bellcore Q.port ATM signaling software product, the Ericsson EOS
family of telecom switch monitoring applications, the Motorola Iridium
global mobile communications system, and enterprise-wide electronic
medical imaging systems for Kodak Health Imaging Systems and Siemens
medical engineering.

OBTAINING ACE

All this material is is available for anonymous ftp from
wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /languages/c++/ACE/ACE-3.3.tar.gz file
(approximately 1 meg compressed via gzip).  This release contains
contains the source code, test drivers, and example applications for
C++ wrapper libraries and the higher-level ACE network programming
framework developed as part of the ADAPTIVE project at the University
of California, Irvine and at Washington University.

ACE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE

The following subdirectories are included in C++_wrappers.tar.gz file:

        . ace  -- the source code and binaries for C++ components (note that
	  	  all of these are at the same "level" in order to work around
		  deficiencies with Windows NT...)
                . ASX -- higher-level C++ network programming
                        framework based on System V STREAMs
                . Connection -- implementations of connection
                        establishment patterns 
                . IPC_SAP -- C++ wrappers around UNIX communication mechanisms
			. DEV_SAP -- wrapper for UNIX device I/O
                        . FIFO_SAP -- wrapper for FIFOS (named pipes)
			. FILE_SAP -- wrapper for UNIX FILE *s
			. IO_SAP -- wrapper for low-level serial-line I/O
                        . SOCK_SAP -- wrapper for BSD sockets
                        . SPIPE_SAP -- wrapper for SVR4 STREAM pipes and connld 
                        . TLI_SAP -- wrapper for SVR4 TLI 
	.		. UPIPE_SAP -- inter-thread communication mechanism
                . Log_Msg -- library API for local/remote logging
                . Mem_Map -- wrapper for BSD mmap() memory mapped files 
                . Misc -- miscellaneous C++ wrappers for the GNU getopt utility,
                        high resolution timers, profile timers, GNU Obstacks,
                        and method call tracing, etc.
                . Reactor -- a framework for OO event demultiplexing and
                        event handler dispatching 
                . Service_Configurator -- a framework for dynamically
                        linking/unlinking services into/from applications
                        at run-time
                . Shared_Malloc -- shared memory malloc/free classes
                . Shared_Memory -- wrapper for SysV/BSD shared memory
                . SV_Message_Queues -- wrapper for SysV message queues
                . SV_Semaphores -- wrapper for SysV semaphores
                . SV_Shared_Memory -- wrapper for SysV shared memory
                . Threads -- wrappers for Solaris 2.x threads and POSIX Pthreads
        . apps    -- Several example applications written using the ACE wrappers
		. Gateway -- application-level gateway
		. Logger -- a distributed logger
		. Name_Server -- a distributed name server
		. Token_Server -- a distributed token server
		. Orbix-Examples -- how to integrate Orbix with ACE
        . bin     -- utility programs for building this release, in
	             particular, a set of scripts for automatically
		     generating manual pages from C++ class headers.
        . man   -- manual pages for ACE in nroff and HTML format
                   generated automatically by OSE class2man
        . rpc++ -- C++ interface to Sun RPC developed by Michael Lipp
                   (mnl@dtro.e-technik.th-darmstadt.de).  This code
                   is distributed "as is" (under the GNU GPL) and is 
                   not part of the ACE release that I maintain.
        . tests -- programs that illustrate how to use ACE components

ACE DOCUMENTATION AND TUTORIALS

Many of the C++ wrappers and higher-level components have been
described in issues of the C++ Report, as well as in proceedings of
the following journals, conferences, and workshops:

	. 4th IEEE International Conference on Software Reuse in
	  Orlando, Florida, April 1996.
        . The SIGS OOP conference in Munich, Germany, February, 1996
        . The OOPSLA '95 conference in Austin, TX, October 1995
        . The ECOOP '95 conference in Aarhus, Denmark, June 1995
        . The SIGS Object Expo conference in New York, NY, June, 1995
        . The 1st USENIX Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies
		in Monterey, CA, June, 1995
        . The SIGS OOP conference in Munich, Germany, February, 1995
        . The Winter USENIX General Conference in January, 1995
        . 3rd SIGS C++ World conference in November, 1994
        . The 9th ACM OOPSLA Conference held in October, 1994 
        . The 1st Conference on the Pattern Languages of Programs, 
                August, 1994
        . The 6th USENIX C++ Conference, April, 1994
        . The 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Configurable Distributed
                Systems, March, 1994
        . The 11th and 12th Annual Sun Users Group Conference in
                December, 1993 and June, 1994 
        . The 2nd SIGS C++ World conference, October, 1993
        . IEE Distributed Systems Engineering Journal, December 1994.

A collection of white papers and tutorial handouts are included with
the release.  The documentation is stored in the gnu/ACE-documentation
directory on wuarchive.wustl.edu (approximately 4 meg compressed).

This directory contains postscript versions of various papers that
describe different aspects of ACE.  You might want to read SUG-94.ps
first, since it gives an overview of the toolkit.

Document		Published in or presented at
--------		----------------------------
Acceptor-Connector.ps   "Acceptor and Connector: Design Patterns for
			Active and Passive Establishment of Network
			Connections." Presented at the EuroPLoP
			workshop held in conjunction with the ECOOP
			'95 conference, August 1995 

ACE-concurrency.ps	"An OO Encapsulation of Lightweight OS
			Concurrency Mechanisms in the ACE Toolkit."
			Washington University technical report WUCS-95-31. 

Active-Objects.ps	"Active Object: an Object Behavioral Pattern
			for Concurrent Programming," the proceedings
			of the Pattern Languages of Programs Conference,
			September 1995 

Atomic_Op-94.ps		"Transparently Parameterizing Synchronization
			into a Concurrent Distributed Application",
			C++ Report, July/August 1994 

C++-report-col1.ps	C++ Report Object Interconnections Column 1
C++-report-col2.ps	C++ Report Object Interconnections Column 2
C++-report-col3.ps	C++ Report Object Interconnections Column 3
C++-report-col4.ps	C++ Report Object Interconnections Column 4

C++-USENIX-94.ps	"ASX: an Object-Oriented Framework for
			Developing Distributed Applications," 6th
			USENIX C++ Conference, April 1994 

C++-world-93.ps		"An Object-Oriented Framework for Developing
			Network Server Daemons", 2nd C++ World
			conference, Dallas, Texas, October 1993

C++-wrappers.ps		"Systems Programming with C++ Wrappers:
			Encapsulating Interprocess Communication
			Services with Object-Oriented Interfaces", C++
			Report, September/October 1992 

CACM-95.ps		"Experience Using Design Patterns to Develop
			Reuseable Object-Oriented Communication
			Software," Communications of the ACM, Special
			Issue on Object-Oriented Experiences, Vol. 38,
			No. 10, October, 1995.

COOTS-95.ps		"Object-Oriented Components for High-speed
			Network Programming," USENIX Conference on
			Object-Oriented Technologies, April 1995.

daemon-design-94.ps	"A Domain Analysis of Network Daemon Design
			Dimensions", C++ Report, March/April 1994 

ECOOP-95.ps		"Experiences Using Design Patterns to Evolve
			System Software Across Diverse OS Platforms,"
			ECOOP '95 conference, August 1995

IPC_SAP-92.ps		"IPC_SAP: An Object-Oriented Interface to
			Interprocess Communication Services" C++
			Report, November/December 1992 

PLoP-94.ps		"Reactor: An Object Behavioral Pattern for
			Concurrent Event Demultiplexing and Event
			Handler Dispatching," Pattern Languages of
			Programs Conference, August 1994 

PLoP-95.ps		"Half-Sync/Half-Async: A Pattern for Efficient
			and Well-structured Concurrent I/O Systems."
			Pattern Languages of Programs Conference,
			September 1995 

Reactor1-93.ps		"The Reactor: An Object-Oriented Interface for
			Event-Driven UNIX I/O Multiplexing (Part 1 of
			2)" C++ Report, February 1993 

Reactor2-93.ps		"The Object-Oriented Design and Implementation
			of the Reactor: A C++ Wrapper for UNIX I/O
			Multiplexing (Part 2 of 2)" C++ Report,
			September/October 1993 

IWCDS.ps		"The Service Configurator Framework: An
			Extensible Architecture for Dynamically
			Configuring Concurrent, Multi-Service Network
			Daemons", 2nd IEEE International Workshop on 
			Configurable Distributed Systems, March 1994 

SUG-94.ps		"The ADAPTIVE Communication Environment:
			An Object-Oriented Network Programming Toolkit 
			for Developing Communication Software",
			11th and 12th Sun Users Group Conference,
			December 1993 and June 1994 

TAPOS-95.ps		"A System of Reusable Design Patterns for 
			Communication Software," Submitted to the
			Journal of Theory and Practice of Object
			Systems Special Issue on Patterns and Pattern
			Languages 

TSS-pattern.ps		"Thread-Specific Storage: A Pattern for
			Reducing Locking Overhead in Concurrent
			Programs," submitted to the ``OOPSLA
			'95 Workshop on design patterns for
			concurrent, parallel, and distributed
			object-oriented systems,'' Austin, Texas,
			October, 1995. 

I update these papers periodically to reflect changes to the ACE
architecture.  Therefore, you might want to check the date on the
files to make sure that you have read the most recent versions of
these papers.

ACE TUTORIALS

I update these papers periodically to reflect changes to the ACE
architecture.  Therefore, you might want to check the date on the
files to make sure that you have read the most recent versions of
these papers.

There may not be enough space on this ftp server to store the
following tutorial handouts:

OOCP-tutorial4.ps 	SIGS Object Expo, June 1995.
			SIGS OOP '95 conference, February, 1995;
			USENIX Winter Conference, January 1995; 

OONP-tutorial4.ps       ECOOP conference, August 1995
			USENIX Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies, 
				June 1995;
			3rd SIGS C++ World conference, November, 1994;
			9th ACM OOPSLA conference, October 1994; 
			6th USENIX C++ Conference, April 1994; 
			2nd SIGS C++ World conference, October 1993; 

CORBA4.ps		"Measuring the Performance of Object-Oriented
			Components for High-speed Network Programming,"
			Object Expo, June 1995;
			USENIX Conference on Object-Oriented
				Technologies, June 1995 
			HP Labs, June 1995

corba4.ps		"An Overview of CORBA"
			Washington University Distributed Operating
			Systems class  

These handouts are available via WWW at URL:

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/

as at wuarchive.wustl.edu in the directory /languages/c++/ACE.

BUILDING AND INSTALLING ACE

Please refer to the INSTALL file for information on how to build and
test the ACE wrappers.  The overall ACE release is very large (~1
Meg).  Therefore, I'm sorry, but I will be unable to distribute the
ACE wrappers via email.  The BIBLIOGRAPHY file contains information on
where to obtain articles that describe the ACE wrappers and the
ADAPTIVE system in more detail.

The current release has been tested extensively on Sun workstations
running Sun OS 4.1.x and Solaris 2.x (on both SPARC and Intel
platforms) using Sun C++ 4.x and GNU G++).  Most of the release has
also been ported to SCO UNIX, HP-UX, SGI, OSF/1, AIX, Linux, Windows
NT and Windows '95.  I expect that major portions of the release will
port easily to other platforms.  If anyone is willing to help
coordinate ports to other platforms please let me know. <P>

ACE MAILING LIST

A mailing list is available for discussing bug fixes, enhancements,
and porting issues regarding ACE.  Please send mail to me at the
ace-users-request@cs.wustl.edu if you'd like to join the mailing list.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION FOR ACE

You are free to do anything you like with the ACE source code such as
including it in commercial software.  Moreover, you are under no
obligation to freely redistribute any of your source code that is
built using ACE (be aware that rpc++ is distributed under the GNU GPL,
which has a different copyright policy).  However, you may not do
anything to the original ACE code contained in this release that will
prevent it from being distributed freely (such as copyrighting it,
etc.).  If you have any improvements, suggestions, and or comments,
I'd like to hear about it!  It would be great to see this distributed
evolve into a comprehensive, robust, and well-documented C++ class
library that would be freely available to everyone.  Naturally, I am
not responsible for any problems caused by using these C++ wrappers.

        Thanks,
        
        Douglas C. Schmidt 
        schmidt@cs.wustl.edu 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
        
Special thanks to Paul Stephenson (paul.stephenson@ebu.ericsson.se)
for devising the recursive Makefile scheme that underlies this
distribution, as well as for devoting countless hours to discussing
object-oriented techniques for developing distributed application
frameworks.

Very special thanks to Todd L. Montgomery <tmont@cerc.wvu.edu> for
fulfilling his quest to get ACE to compile with GCC!

I would also like to thank all the following people who have also
contributed to ACE:

Olaf Kruger <okruger@cssc-melb.tansu.com.au>
Ed Brown <eebrown@netcom.com>
Lee Baker <baker@ctis.af.mil>
Alex Ranous <ranous@nsa.hp.com>
Mark Patton <mark_patton@tx72.mot.com>
Steffen Winther Sorensen <sts@dad.stibo.dk> for
Chris Cleeland <chris@milo.st-louis.mo.us>
Tim Harrison <harrison@cs.wustl.edu>
Troy Warner <tnw1@core01.osi.com>
Stacy Mahlon <mcs@contour.mayo.edu>
Charles Eads <eads@synoptics.com>
Mark Frutig <mfrutig@fnbc.com>
Todd Hoff <thm@ictv.com>
George <george@truffula.fp.trw.com>
Aniruddha Gokhale <gokhale@cs.wustl.edu>
Irfan Pyarali <ip1@cs.wustl.edu>
Brad Needham <bneedham@arinc.com> 
Leslee Xu <lxu@ics.uci.edu>
Alex V. Maclinovsky <alexm@teltrunk1.tait.co.nz>
Detlef Becker <beckerd@erlh.siemens.de>
Bruce Worden <bruce@betsy.gps.caltech.edu>
Chris Tarr <ctarr@objectspace.co>
Bill Sears <wsears@world.std.com>
Greg Lavendar <g.lavender@isode.com>
Steve Warwick <swarwick@arinc.com>
Mats Sundvall <sundvall@perrier.embnet.se>
Andreas Ueltschi <Andreas.Ueltschi@ska.com>
Nigel Hooke <n.hooke@trl.oz.au>
Medhi Tabatabai <Mehdi.Tabatabai@ed.nce.sita.int>
Stuart Powell <stuartp@ot.com.au>
Bin Mu <mubin@wfg.com>
Andrew McGowan <mcgowan@wg2.waii.com>
Ken Konecki <kenk@wfg.com>
John P. Hearn <jph@ccrl.nj.nec.com>
Giang Hoang Nguyen <yang@titan.com>
Carlos Garcia Braschi <cgarcia@caramba.tid.es>
Jam Hamidi <jh1@osi.com>
Eric Vaughan <evaughan@arinc.com>
Karl-Heinz Dorn <kdorn@erlh.siemens.de>
Steve Ritter <ritter@titan.com>
Chandra Venkatapathy <cvenkat@develop.bsis.com>
Matt Stevens <mstevens@kirk.softeng.infonautics.com>
Bob Vistica <robertv@ims.com>
David Trumble <trumble@cvg.enet.dec.com>
John Morey <jmorey@hitel.com>
George Reynolds <george@dvcorp.com>
Hans Rohnert <Hans.Rohnert@zfe.siemens.de>
Alex V Maclinvosky <alexey@ace.elektra.ru>
Todd Blanchard <tblancha@evolving.com>
Rob Clairmont <rclairmo@bnr.ca> 
Christian Millour <chris@etca.fr>
Neil Cohen <nbc@metsci.com>
Dieter Quehl <quehl@csaserv.erlh.siemens.de>
Reginald S. Perry <perry@zso.dec.com>
James Morris <jmorris@aurora.apana.org.au>
Mark Seaborn <mseaborn@itthp1.comm.mot.com>
Phil Brooks <phil_brooks@mentorg.com>
E. Jason Scheck <jasons@ims.com>
Daniel Proulx <daproulx@qc.bell.ca>
Bill Tang <tang@tekats.com>
John Huchinson <hutchiso@epi.syr.ge.com>
Jack Erickson <jack@cibc.com>
Byron Walton <bwalton@hughes.scg.hac.com>
Bill Lear <rael@anarchy.cybercom.net>
Mark Zusman <marklz@topaz.technion.ac.il>
Aurelio Nocerino <aurelio@irsipcs2-27-le0.irsip.na.cnr.it>
Walt Akers <akers@cebaf.gov>
Greg Baker <GBaker@p01.az15m.iac.honeywell.com>
Alexandre Karev <karev@vxcern.cern.ch>
Pramod Kumar Singh <pramod@saturn.miel.mot.com> 
Bryon Rigg <bryon_rigg@mail.telecorpsys.com>
Brad Brown <bbrown@rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com>
Patty Genualdi <genualdp@agcs.com>
Eshel Liran <liran@bimacs.cs.biu.ac.il> 
Mick Adams <eeimas@eei.ericsson.se>
Chris Eich <Chris_Eich@optilink.optilink.dsccc.com>
Mike Flinn <mike.flinn@smtpgate.aws.waii.com>
Jesper S. M|ller <stophph@diku.dk>
Chris Lahey <clahey@ix.netcom.com>
