samba-mirror/source4/build/pidl/README

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:

client.pm - Generates client call functions in C
dump.pm - Converts the parse tree back to an IDL file
eparser.pm - Generates a parser for the ethereal network sniffer
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
validator.pm  - Validates the parse tree

Other files in this directory are:
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

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