Cliser: The Class Libraries

The Cliser code generator takes information from a user interface and builds classes for the client and servers specified by the user.

The key to minimizing the amount of code that must be generated is to have existing classes that provide most of the required functionality, and then have the code generator define the user's client and server classes as extensions of these existing classes. To achieve this, Cliser provides multiple class libraries (one per target language), each providing predefined classes for the various kinds of clients and servers. To minimize redundant coding effort, these classes are organized into hierarchies that take advantage of inheritance and polymorphism. Designing and implementing these class hierarchies was the most difficult part of building Cliser.

Since Cliser can generate source code in different languages, a different class hierarchy has been constructed for each language (e.g., Java, C++).