Hello,
We've recently started using RDNZL for integration between an internal application written in ACL 7.0 and a CAD system using a .Net-based extension-layer in the latter; using .Net Remoting for communicating between the two systems. We've found that RDNZL works robustly, reliably and is very easy to use. Thank you very much for creating it.
I have a question with regards to the action of the CAST operator: Currently, when CAST'ing from one .Net class to another, the type of the container is destructively updated; and there doesn't seem to be any way of copying a container so that a reference to the same object but with another type can be created. That is, I'd like to do something like
(cast foo "SomeType")) (setq bar (copy-container foo)) (cast bar "SomeOtherType"))
without the last operating also setting the type of FOO to SomeOtherType [1]
Is there some idiom that would work like this that I've missed? If not, I guess the functionality would have to be added at the C++ level, which I haven't really looked at yet. Any pointers would be appreciated.
Iver Odin Kvello iok@selvaag.no
[1] The actual situation that came up was this: We have a remote object - actually a transparent proxy - of an interface-type WALL, and we need to get a reference to its lease. However, to to this we must cast the object to MarshalByRefObject, and if we use CAST to get this, it is impossible to CAST back to the original interface type. We did find a workaround: using System.Runtime.Remoting.RemotingServices.GetRealProxy, another copy of the transparent proxy is easily obtained, and that can be cast to a MBRO instead. But a copy/cast-operator would have been nicer.