java RMI communication with non java entity?

Question

Is it possible to communicate with non java entity sing RMI protocol What is special about RMI IIOP?

Thx

Earing

Answer 1

It's technically possible. You will need to implement a RMI server on the non-java side.

I would not recommend it though. Try exploring the possibility of using WebServices, which is commonly used for that: communicating entities from (probably) different platforms.

Purpose

It is technically practically impossible. You would have to implement not only RMI but also Serialization for the entire set of JDK classes plus application classes on the non-Java side. – Fubsy

True. Although I agree is practically very hard it's still technically possible. – Purpose

Answer 2

RMI is protocol supposed to be purely used by Java applications. It put some requirements on communicating which depends on Java implementation (e.g. serialization). On the other hand RMI IIOP is protocol which is used by EJB implementation in order to add more functionality to communication (e.g. transaction context propagation).

IIOP is originally from CORBA and could be used to communicate with components written in other languages.

I wouldn't go Web Services route if you do need to use features available to IIOP. Unless, of course you'd use respective WS-* specifications to get them.

Hyoscyamus

Answer 3

Old question but, but answered because of high google ranking

I don't think you could do this easily.

As an alternative to Java-RMI I would recommend XML-RPC.

You can then communicate with Python, C++, Objective-C, Erlang, Groovy, Java, JavaScript, PHP and many more.

On the java side you can use the Apache XML-RPC library.

Pro: many implementations for different languages

Con: XML-RPC does know primitives and base64 encoded binaries. They will not handle your complex Java objects but give you a Map. You need to map them to your Objects by yourself.---

Borman