There are two possible forms of C bindings for SOM programming:
SOMCORBA
The SOMSTARS form is more appropriate if you plan to move your class implementations from C to C++ at some future point. This choice will determine how object references will appear in all of your C programs. For example, to declare a reference to an instance of class Foo, you would code either:
Foo afoo; /* Strict CORBA compliant form */ or Foo *afoo; /* C++ migration or OIDL-compatible form */
If you later decide to switch from one SOM coding style to the other, you will have to convert any C code that you have already written in one style to the other style.
The Workplace Shell uses the SOMSTARS version of the SOM header files. Therefore, the OS/2 Warp Toolkit installs the SOMSTARS version of the header files.
The Workplace Shell interface definition language (IDL) files (WP*.IDL) are the counterparts for the documented Workplace Shell classes' SC files provided with the OS/2 2.1 Toolkit. The WP*.H and WP*.XH files emitted from the Workplace Shell's IDL files by the SOM compiler are also provided.
The OS/2 makefiles for the Workplace Shell OS/2 Warp Toolkit samples are written assuming the SOMSTARS style of coding. The C samples provided with the SOMobjects Developer Toolkit use the SOMCORBA style of coding (these samples are not part of the IBM Developer's Toolkit for OS/2 Warp).