The Thin Client API
The client API provides C++ functions for connecting to a service and sending requests. Requests take the form of operations named and defined by the Server.
Before sending a request, the client retrieves an operation object from the Component Server, and sets its arguments using one of the following types of value for each argument:
After a client request is serviced, the client receives the results in the form of a list of ostc_Objects, which are essentially lists of attribute/value pairs. The API provides functions for retrieving attribute values, which are each values of one of the preceding fundamental types.
If the number of objects to be returned is large, the client can specify that the results be returned incrementally. The incremental nature of the results is transparent to the client, since the usual API functions for retrieving list elements automatically trigger a Server interaction whenever a new batch of results must be sent.
The client maintains a cache of object lists returned by the Server. When you issue a request, you can specify that the results should be obtained from the cache, if possible, instead of from the Server.
The client API is entirely independent of ObjectStore. You can use the API to build an independent executable, for example a CGI executable, or to build a plug-in, for example an NSAPI or ISAPI plug-in.
For more information on the Client API, see the Thin Client API Overview.
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