Obtaining Proxies
This page describes the ways an application can obtain a proxy.
On this page:
Obtaining a Proxy from a String
The communicator operation stringToProxy
creates a proxy from its stringified representation, as shown in the following C++ example:
Ice::ObjectPrx p = communicator->stringToProxy("ident:tcp -p 5000");
Obtaining a Proxy from Properties
Rather than hard-coding a stringified proxy as the previous example demonstrated, an application can gain more flexibility by externalizing the proxy in a configuration property. For example, we can define a property that contains our stringified proxy as follows:
MyApp.Proxy=ident:tcp -p 5000
We can use the communicator operation propertyToProxy
to convert the property's value into a proxy, as shown below in Java:
Ice.ObjectPrx p = communicator.propertyToProxy("MyApp.Proxy");
As an added convenience, propertyToProxy
allows you to define subordinate properties that configure the proxy's local settings. The properties below demonstrate this feature:
MyApp.Proxy=ident:tcp -p 5000 MyApp.Proxy.PreferSecure=1 MyApp.Proxy.EndpointSelection=Ordered
These additional properties simplify the task of customizing a proxy (as you can with proxy methods) without the need to change the application's code. The properties shown above are equivalent to the following statements:
Ice.ObjectPrx p = communicator.stringToProxy("ident:tcp -p 5000"); p = p.ice_preferSecure(true); p = p.ice_endpointSelection(Ice.EndpointSelectionType.Ordered);
The list of supported proxy properties includes the most commonly-used proxy settings. The communicator prints a warning by default if it does not recognize a subordinate property. You can disable this warning using the property Ice.Warn.UnknownProperties
.
Note that proxy properties can themselves have proxy properties. For example, the following sets the PreferSecure
property on the default locator's router:
Ice.Default.Locator.Router.PreferSecure=1
Obtaining a Proxy using Factory Methods
Proxy factory methods allow you to modify aspects of an existing proxy. Since proxies are immutable, factory methods always return a new proxy if the desired modification differs from the proxy's current configuration. Consider the following C# example:
Ice.ObjectPrx p = communicator.stringToProxy("..."); p = p.ice_oneway();
ice_oneway
is considered a factory method because it returns a proxy configured to use oneway invocations. If the original proxy uses a different invocation mode, the return value of ice_oneway
is a new proxy object.
The checkedCast
and uncheckedCast
methods can also be considered factory methods because they return new proxies that are narrowed to a particular Slice interface. A call to checkedCast
or uncheckedCast
typically follows the use of other factory methods, as shown below:
Ice.ObjectPrx p = communicator.stringToProxy("..."); Ice.LocatorPrx loc = Ice.LocatorPrxHelper.checkedCast(p.ice_secure(true));
Note however that, once a proxy has been narrowed to a Slice interface, it is not normally necessary to perform another down-cast after using a factory method. For example, we can rewrite this example as follows:
Ice.ObjectPrx p = communicator.stringToProxy("..."); Ice.LocatorPrx loc = Ice.LocatorPrxHelper.checkedCast(p); loc = (Ice.LocatorPrx)p.ice_secure(true);
A language-specific cast may be necessary, as shown here for C#, because the factory methods are declared to return the type ObjectPrx
, but the proxy object itself retains its narrowed type. The only exceptions are the factory methods ice_facet
and ice_identity
. Calls to either of these methods may produce a proxy for an object of an unrelated type, therefore they return a base proxy that you must subsequently down-cast to an appropriate type.
Obtaining a Proxy by Invoking Operations
An application can also obtain a proxy as the result of an Ice invocation. Consider the following Slice definitions:
interface Account { ... }; interface Bank { Account* findAccount(string id); };
Invoking the findAccount
operation returns a proxy for an Account
object. There is no need to use checkedCast
or uncheckedCast
on this proxy because it has already been narrowed to the Account
interface. The C++ code below demonstrates how to invoke findAccount
:
BankPrx bank = ... AccountPrx acct = bank->findAccount(id);
Of course, the application must have already obtained a proxy for the bank object using one of the techniques shown above.