Stibium includes a .Net client library that enables Stibium's naming and directory services to be accessed by .Net software clients. This library is based on our port to .Net of the Java JNDI naming and directory interface standards. The design and behaviour of the Stibium .Net client library are very similar to the Java (JNDI service provider) library.

The Stibium .Net client library is distributed with a series of 'NUnit' Test Suites, which can be used to automatically test the client library. These test suites also serve to provide an extensive set of coding examples.

Further information can be found in the following documents, which are accessible to registered users on request:

A Simple Coding Example - Using The Stibium .Net Client Library

The example below shows how to create and initialise a .Net Stibium Context, note that the value of SERVER_ADDRESS should be set to the network address of the Stibium server.


    ' In this example we create a root context with its server connection information.
    '
    Public Sub Example1()


        ' Create and populate the client-side environment with connection information.
        ' This environment is analogous to the JNDI configuration environment.
        '
        Dim clientEnvironment As New Hashtable()

        clientEnvironment.Add(StibiumEnvironmentItems.SERVER_ADDRESS, SERVER_ADDRESS)
        clientEnvironment.Add(StibiumEnvironmentItems.LOGIN_ID, "test-user1")
        clientEnvironment.Add(StibiumEnvironmentItems.PASSWORD, "mypassword")

        Dim ctxRoot As IStibiumContext = Nothing

        Try

            ' Use the 'ContextFactory' to get an Initialised Context.
            '
            ctxRoot = ContextFactory.getRootContext(clientEnvironment)

        Finally

            ' safeClose() is a utility function which closes the context.
            ' It does not throw, so is convenient for use in 'finally' blocks.
            '
            ContextFactory.safeClose(ctxRoot)

        End Try

        Return

    End Sub

Functionality Provided by the Stibium .Net Client Interface Library

The core functionality provided by this library enables software clients to:

Create and destroy contexts.
Add / remove binding values to/from contexts.
Add, read or modify attributes for both contexts and bindings.
Lookup contexts and/or bindings.
List the contents of a context.
Control client access to the stored data.

Interoperability Between Java and .Net Clients

The Stibium server can be configured to support a range of different sort of mechanisms to convert data and / or objects to and from xml representations. Some of these are specific to Java, and some are specific to the .Net framework.

If the SimpleXMLEncoder is used, then all the data stored in and managed by Stibium will be fully inter-operable between both Java and .Net clients; so bindings stored by one can be read by the other, and vice-versa.