Initiate Method

The Initiate method connects to an appropriate server process that hosts the specified OpenROAD application image. An Initiate must be done once—and only once—prior to using the Call4GL method.

integer = RemoteServer.Initiate(image = imagepath, type = rptype
[, flags = startflags][ , location = locationname ]
[ , routing = routingstring])

The RP_LOCAL type is useful for development and debugging. When initiated in RP_LOCAL mode, all Call4GL calls on the RemoteServer object are forwarded to a local instance of the named 4GL procedure (within the current application or its included applications) and not sent to an OpenROAD Server.

Specifies that COM or DCOM will be used to communicate from the client to the OpenROAD Server. The parameters passed when the Call4GL/CallProc method is invoked are encoded as COM SAFEARRAYs and are passed ByValue and ByReference from the client to the OpenROAD Server.

These SAFEARRAY parameters are marshaled from the client to the OpenROAD Server Pooler over COM/DCOM. In the OpenROAD Server Pooler the parameters are re-materialized temporarily and examined to determine how to route the request to the appropriate OpenROAD Server Slave process. The request is then marshaled again into COM SAFEARRAYs and passed by COM/DCOM to the appropriate OpenROAD Server Slave process.

In the OpenROAD Server Slave process, the marshaled parameters are materialized into OpenROAD variables and control is passed to OpenROAD Runtime in the OpenROAD Server Slave process.

Specifies that COM or DCOM will be used to communicate from the client to the OpenROAD Server. The client can, however, be an ANONYMOUS user.

Specifies that COM or DCOM will be used to communicate from the client to the OpenROAD Server. When this value is passed, the client can be ANONYMOUS and will use a more efficient method of passing the parameters from the client to the OpenROAD Server. For more information, see the following description about the compressed value.

Specifies that COM or DCOM will be used to communicate from the client to the OpenROAD Server. When this value is passed, a more efficient technique is used to pass parameters when the Call4GL/CallProc method is invoked from the client to the OpenROAD Server.

When the Call4GL method is invoked, the client initially builds a set of COM SAFEARRAYs used to encapsulate the parameters. A binary string is generated from the SAFEARRAYs, implementing a simple encoding and compression of the parameters. DCOM sends this binary string to the OpenROAD Server. There, the string is not decoded; only the header is examined to determine how the parameters should be routed to the correct destination. The binary string is then routed to the appropriate OpenROAD Server Slave process through COM/DCOM. In the OpenROAD Server Slave, the binary string is decoded and used to populate the 4GL variables that the Service Call Procedure then processes.

Using the compressed method, you can achieve significant reductions in the total number of bytes passed by COM/DCOM. These numbers are typically in the range of 40% to 80% depending on the data content of the parameters being passed from the client to the OpenROAD Server.

Specifies that HTTP will be used to communicate from the client to a .NET or Java OpenROAD Server Gatekeeper. The request is always passed as compressed when using HTTP transport. The OpenROAD Server Gatekeeper examines the binary string and then passes it by DCOM to the OpenROAD Server Pooler for processing. The string passed is always a compressed string.

Note: If the Initiate method is invoked directly to make a connection, the Name Server is bypassed. To use the Name Server from an OpenROAD client, see uc_name_server_client Class (see uc_name_server_client Class).