.. _concepts:

==========
 Concepts
==========

The |project| architecture and associated libraries and tools support
a number of different use-cases related to enabling interoperation
(w.r.t. :term:`data type` s and serialization :term:`mechanism` s) of
systems. The following sections briefly explain these use-cases.

Bridging
========

TODO

Code Generation
===============

An important use-case of the |project| toolchain consists in
generating code to be used by given system components to enable
interoperation (w.r.t. data types and serialization mechanisms) with
other system.

More concretely, the |project| system contains a compiler component
which reads data type definitions (specified in some `IDL`_), has
knowledge regarding serialization mechanisms and generates code in
several programming languages for components to use.

For example, a C++ component which uses `Google Protocol Buffers`_
data types to communicate with other components could be enabled to
interoperate with a `ROS`_-based system by generating code with the
following characteristics:

  programming language
  
    C++
    
  :term:`data holder` s

    Look like generated by the protocol buffer compiler.

  serialization
    
    Supports the ROS serialization :term:`mechanism`

Mapping
-------

As a special case of the code-generation use-case, the generated code
can implement mapping between different :term:`data type` s and/or
serializatin :term:`mechanism` s. In the context of the |project|
project, a :term:`mapping` connects a :term:`data holder` and a
:term:`wire-schema`.