Access Point Names and Templates

Summary

XPA access points are composed of two parts: a general class and a specific name. Both parts accept template characters so that you can send/retrieve data to/from multiple servers at one time.


When XPA servers call XPANew(), or XPANew() to define XPA access points, they specify a string identifier composed of a class and a name. When clients communicate with XPA access points, they specify which access points to communicate with using an identifier of the form:
  class:name
All registered XPA access points that match the specified identifier will be available for communication (subject to access control rules, etc.)

The XPA class:name identifier actually is a template: it accepts wild cards in its syntax, so a single specifier can match more than one XPA access point. (Note that the class is optional and defaults to "*".) The allowed syntax for clients to specify the class:name template is of the form shown below. (Note that "*" is used to denote a generic wild card, but other wild cards characters are supported, as described below).

key

explanation

class:name

exact match of class and name

name

match any class with this name

*:name

match any class with this name

class:*

match any name of this class

*:*

match any access point

In general, the following wild-cards can be applied to class and name:

wild card

explanation

?

match any character, but there must be one

*

match anything, or nothing

[<c>...]

match an inclusive set


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Last updated: May 18, 1999