The Guide to Writing DCE Applications is a hands-on programming guide to OSF's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) for first-time DCE application programmers. This book is designed to help new DCE users make the transition from conventional, nondistributed applications programming to distributed DCE programming. Topics include the IDL and ACF files, essential RPC calls, binding methods and the name service, server initialization, memory management, and selected advanced topics. Several small, practical programming examples are included. We believe the programmer writing her first DCE application will find this book the perfect resource. A primary focus is remote procedure calls (RPC). The Guide to Writing DCE Applications is designed to get the programmer up and running with working examples of client/server applications and to provide a comprehensive model for the development of distributed applications. Contents include:

• Overview of a distributed application.
• Using a DCE RPC interface (IDL and ACF files).
• Developing clients.
• Using pointers and arrays.
• Developing a server.
• Using a name service.
• Using a context handle to maintain server state.
• Using pipes for large quantities of data.
• Quick references.
• Complete code of four applications, plus Makefiles and directions for building and running.

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