UNO Url - Specification

Specification

The UNO-Url is used to address a specific UNO object in a different process. It allows services such as the com.sun.star.bridge.UnoUrlResolver to map the addressed object from a remote process into the local process by setting an interprocess connection and by using a certain kind of protocol on this connection.

The UNO-Url consists of four parts separated by colon and semicolon.

1. The constant string 'uno:'. This identifies the url as UNO-Url and is needed to distinguish a uno-url e.g. from an http or ftp url.
2. A string which characterizes the type of the connection, that shall be used to access the other process. Directly after this string can optionally follow a comma separated list of name-value pairs, where name and value are separated by a '='.

   The connection-type-string and the names may only consist of ASCII letters and digits. They are not case sensitive. The value part is an arbitrary Unicode string, which is encoded in UTF8. Any character except letters, digits and !$&'()*+-./:?@_~ must be converted to %xx, where xx is the hexadecimal representation of the UTF8 byte. There are functions defined (see Uri class) which support such conversions.

   The connection_services document explains currently supported connection types and parameters and how the connection types can be extended.

   The connection-type specifies the transport mechanism used to transfer a bytestream (e.g. tcp/ip-sockets or named pipes).

3. A string which characterizes the type of protocol that is used to communicate over the established byte stream connection. The string can be followed by a comma separated list of name-value pairs, which can be used to customize the protocol to specific needs. The suggested protocol is urp (Uno Remote Protocol), have a look at the specification to see how it works and to get a list of possible properties.

   The protocol-type-string and the names may only consist of ASCII letters and digits. They are interpreted case insensitive. The value part is an arbitrary Unicode string, which is encoded in UTF8. Any character except letters, digits and !$&'()*+-./:?@_~ must be converted to %xx, where xx is the hexadecimal representation of the UTF8 byte. There are functions defined (see Uri class), which support such conversions.

   The arrangement of connections and bridges is explained in detail in the remotebridge document.

4. The object name of the object to be imported. A process must explicitly export a certain object by this distinct name, it is not possible to access an arbitrary UNO-object (for example as it would be possible in with CORBA's IOR).

   Valid characters are letters, digits, and !$&'()*+,-./:?=@_~. Other characters are forbidden, such that this string can be taken as is (no conversion or escaping required).

Examples

• uno:socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager
• uno:pipe,name=mypipename;urp;MyObjectName

Author: Jörg Budischewski ($Date: 2004/11/27 13:16:03 $) Copyright 2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA.