Transition To RMI Alpha2

This document summarizes the changes made between the Early Access Release (EAR) of the Remote Method Invocation system and Alpha2. (The EAR was also known as alpha1). If you developed code under the EAR, you should read this document to know what kinds of changes you will need to make to your code for it to work under Alpha2.

This is just a summary. For complete details on each subject discussed, see the RMI Specification.

Package names: The package name for RMI is now java.rmi instead of the EAR's sunw.rmi. The name chnage refelects the fact that RMI will become part of a future Java release.
Remote and RemoteObject: These names have been swapped in this release -- sunw.rmi.RemoteObject is now java.rmi.Remote, and sunw.rmi.Remote is now java.rmi.server.RemoteObject.
Stub Generation: The stub generator rmigen is gone. In its place, you use rmic, which generates class files directly. No intermediate Java files are generated.
Marshaling: Arguments and return values are marshaled using Java object serialization. In Alpha2, a Java object of any type can be a parameter or return value.
Examples: The Echo and Chat examples in this release have changed completely. Other examples from the previous release are gone. In other words, you should check out the new ones for the way to do things.
Casting and instanceof: The sunw.rmi.Remote.cast and sunw.rmi.Remote.instanceOf methods are gone. In Alpha2, you can simply use the normal Java cast and instanceof syntax directly. No special RMI calls are required.
Server-side Changes: A server implementation is no longer required to set its port number. The implementation of java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteServer provides one by default. You can explicitly choose a port if you need to using one of java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteServer's constructor.
Transport: The transport is no longer based on Spring doors. This will rarely, if ever, be visible to the programmer.

Summary of API Changes

`sunw.rmi.Control`	Gone
	The static methods `getClientHost` and `getClientPort` in the class `java.rmi.server.RemoteServer` replace the methods `getCallerHostName` and `getCallerPort` (respectively) in the class `sunw.rmi.Control`.
`sunw.rmi.Naming`	Replaced with `java.rmi.Naming`
	The method names and signatures have changed. Also, there is no need to specify a port number in the URL, since the port will default to something reasonable if you use our registry implementation `java.rmi.registry.RegistryImpl`.
`sunw.rmi.NamingException`	Gone
`sunw.rmi.RemoteObject`	Replaced with `sunw.rmi.Remote`
`sunw.rmi.RemoteException`	Completion codes gone
	Completion codes no longer exist, and the constructors and methods dealing with them are not in `java.rmi.RemoteException`.
`sunw.rmi.Unreferenced`	Replaced with `java.rmi.server.Unreferenced`
	(but not implemented in this release)
`sunw.rmi.Remote`	Replaced with `java.rmi.server.RemoteObject`
	Both `cast` and `instanceOf` methods are gone. `RemoteObject` also overrides some of the methods inherited from the class `Object`
`sunw.rmi.Marshaling`	Gone
	Arguments and return values are marshaled using Java Object Serialization.
`sunw.orb.ORBException`	Gone
`sunw.orb.MarshalBuffer`	Gone
`sunw.rmi.util`	Gone