The Slice Language
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Slice is the interface definition language (IDL) of Ice. Slice definitions describe the interfaces of Ice objects, with their operations, parameters, return values and exceptions, and the data types those operations exchange. A client and a server can exchange only data whose types are defined in Slice.
Slice definitions are independent of any programming language. They form a contract between client and server, so the client and the server can be written in different languages.
Each language has its own Slice compiler, such as slice2cpp for C++ or slice2java for Java, which translates Slice definitions into types and APIs for that language. Clients use the generated code to invoke operations, and servers use it to implement them. The rules of this translation are called a language mapping; Ice provides language mappings for C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, MATLAB, PHP, Python, Ruby and Swift.
Slice is a purely declarative language: it describes interfaces and types, and contains no executable statements.