Can a CORBA server return a pointer to a GTK+ object?

[rms39 columbia edu (Russell Steinthal)]

A question for the ORBit/CORBA gurus:

Is there a way for a CORBA server to return a pointer to arbitrary 
memory?  My gut tells me that that shouldn't be allowed (since it 
would be next to impossible to extend to a remote server), and the 
documentation I have found so far seems to confirm that...

I'm starting code for the new mail-checker I've been bugging the list 
about for the last few weeks, and would like to share the 
representation of a mailbox between the CORBA backend and the 
clients, presumed to be GTK apps.  Miguel had suggested that using 
standard GTK+ objects would allow clients to get easy notifications 
of new mail (via signals) which makes sense, but the CORBA server 
needs to be able to give them references to the mailbox objects 
somehow.  (They will be of various types derived from GnomeMailbox, 
derived from GTKObject.)

If there's a better way to achieve this, let me know... The first 
alternative which I came up with required passing references to 
client-memory as arguments to a CORBA call, which is basically the 
same thing.  Can I even rely on passing a function pointer for 
notification?

The bottom line is probably: is there a way to allow clients to 
receive notifications without requiring them to know there's CORBA 
involved?  Or should I give in and require all mail-checkers be CORBA 
clients simply specify a client-side CORBA interface which is called 
when new mail arrives?  (I guess that makes the mailcheck clients 
into mini-servers...)

-Russell

-- 
Russell Steinthal
<rms39@columbia.edu>		Columbia College Class of 1999
<steintr@avnet.org>		System Administrator, AV-Network