What Is a Bridge?

A bridge is a technology path that lets applications in different programming languages or environments share information: for example, between IDL and Java. With bridge technology, you can use an application that manipulates data in its native language (e.g., Java) by calling on objects and processes from another language (e.g., IDL). In this way, you can take advantage of both environments to solve a problem that might be otherwise difficult for either environment separately: for example, embedding an IDL data object in a Java GUI to display a complex data transformation.

Note
Startup files are not executed when running bridge applications because an IDL command line is not present. See Understanding When Startup Files are Not Executed (Using IDL) for details.

IDL supports import and export bridge technology. The Import Bridge lets you import the functionality of a COM or Java object to an IDL application. The Export Bridge lets you export the functionality of an IDL object to COM or Java application. See the following for more information: