XPIDL

From MDC

XPIDL is an Interface Description Language used to specify XPCOM interface classes.

Interface Description Languages (IDL) are used to describe interfaces in a language- and machine-independent way. IDLs make it possible to define interfaces which can then be processed by tools to autogenerate language-dependent interface specifications.

One of these tools is xpidl, which is used to generate C++ header files, typelib information, and much more.

[edit] Writing XPIDL interface files

XPIDL closely resembles OMG IDL, with extended syntax to handle IIDs and additional types. Some examples are in the xpcom/base and xpcom/ds directories of the Mozilla tree.

• XPIDL syntax (Out of date)
• XPIDL:Syntax (XPIDL EBNF)
• XPIDL Author's Guide (Mostly up-to-date)

[edit] Resources

• Some unsorted notes including a keyword list
• xpidl is a tool for generating C++ headers, Java interfaces, XPConnect typelibs, and HTML documentation from XPIDL files