Universal Network Objects

UNO is an interface-based object model, a specification for a communication model among distributed objects. It allows these objects to be implemented in any language for which a binding exists. Currently there are language bindings for Java and for different C++ compilers on different platforms, thus covering the two most commonly used programming languages. For Java, there is not only a language binding, but the Java environment also contains a complete UNO runtime system.

At present, the UNO Development Kit is available in the following environments:

The UDK includes the libraries and tools to develop system independent components conforming to UNO. Also included is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) based DTD (document type definition) for describing projects in a system independent manner. The SAL library provides a System Abstraction Layer. It is predominantly written in C and only exports methods which are conforming to C calling convention. For easy use in C++ there are inline wrapper classes for commonly used API functions of sal. The cppu (Collection of UNO utility and runtime programs) library is the core UNO runtime. The mechanisms needed for creating environments and bridging objects are in this library. Helper functions and templates are located in the cppuhelper library.

You can use the UDK to implement your own components in languages such as Java, C, or C++. The UDK is independent from the office suite so you can also use it as an object model for other applications. The UDK is provided as an independent package (UDK package) which can be downloaded and used without using the complete office.


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