Passing Objects by Value in CORBA

The CORBA specifications [OMGa] define an Interface Definition Language (IDL) to describe object interfaces. This approach allows the separation between the interface description and the actual implementation of object operations, which may be realized in any programming language. An IDL interface specification declares the object attributes and the signature of the operations supported by the object indicating the types of the arguments and whether they are in, out, or inout parameters. The IDL language defines a concrete syntax for a non-pure object-oriented model, meaning that it distinguishes between object types on the one hand and non-object types on the other. While object types identify IDL interfaces, non-object types correspond to the traditional types that can be found in many programming languages, such as int, boolean, char, etc. (basic types), struct, union, sequence, etc. (constructed types).