general inter-ORB protocol (GIOP)

General Inter-ORB Protocol (GIOP) is the description language for communication between two Object Request Brokers (ORB) in distributed computer systems over any transport protocol. GIOP can work with all connection-oriented transport protocols, it describes the syntax of communication between Object Request Brokers (ORB) of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture( CORBA).

GIOP was specified by the Object Management Group( OMG), which specified three sub-areas for GIOP: Common Data Representation( CDR), Interoperable Object Reference( IOR), and the various message formats. Common Data Representation is a transfer syntax for mapping IDL data types, Interface Definition Language (IDL), into a simpler representation of transfers between object request brokers and ORB bridges, and Interoperable Object Reference defines a reference data format to a remoteobject.

GIOP recognizes various message formats that facilitate message exchange between agents. These message formats include object request commands, object implementation localization, and communication channel management.