Taligent's Guide to Designing Programs

Use the Name Server

Use the Taligent Toolbox Name Server to name fixed resources ; but don't use it for naming user-visible entities. Think of it as naming C++ static variables, rather than instances of objects. Like static variables, the servers named in the Name Server have fixed names that are hard-wired into client code (in their client objects). Object instances, on the other hand, don't necessarily have names, and the way they are identified varies from subsystem to subsystem. If you have multiple instances of servers that act like object instances, or that correspond to an open-ended set of user-visible entities (such as mounted file system volumes or disks), consider using an alternative way of identifying them.

Although it's technically possible for the Name Server to map server identifiers into a character string, don't do it. The Name Server's database needs to be resident, and you have to rework the server startup code to dissociate the server name from the program name--it is hard to uniquely map to and from strings.

NOTE Eventually a more powerful local Name Server that uses objects as keys and values will replace the current Name Server. The current Name Server API will continue to be supported as an alternative interface.

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