3.2. Generate Type Support Code with rtiddsgen

You will provide your IDL as an input to rtiddsgen. rtiddsgen supports code generation for the following standard types:

  • octet, char, wchar

  • short, unsigned short

  • long, unsigned long

  • long long, unsigned long long float

  • double, long double

  • boolean

  • string

  • struct

  • array

  • enum

  • wstring

  • sequence

  • union

  • typedef

  • value type

The script to run rtiddsgen is in <your_top_level_dir>/rtiddsgen/scripts.

To generate support code for data types in a file called HelloWorld.idl:

rtiddsgen -micro -language C -replace HelloWorld.idl

Run rtiddsgen -help to see all available options. For the options used here:

  • The -micro option is necessary to generate support code specific to Connext DDS Micro, as rtiddsgen is also capable of generating support code for Connext DDS, and the generated code for the two are different. Note that RTI Connext DDS Micro and Connext DDS Micro use the same rtiddsgen and similar code is generated. However, when the generated code is compiled with RTI_CERT certain APIs are excluded.

  • The -language option specifies the language of the generated code. Connext DDS Micro supports C and C++ (with -language C++).

  • The -replace option specifies that the new generated code will replace, or overwrite, any existing files with the same name.

rtiddsgen generates the following files for an input file HelloWorld.idl:

  • HelloWorld.h and HelloWorld.c. Operations to manage a sample of the type, and a DDS sequence of the type.

  • HelloWorldPlugin.h and HelloWorldPlugin.c. Implements the type-plugin interface defined by Connext DDS Micro. Includes operations to serialize and deserialize a sample of the type and its DDS instance keys.

  • HelloWorldSupport.h and HelloWorldSupport.c. Support operations to generate a type-specific a DataWriter and DataReader, and to register the type with a DDS DomainParticipant.