I am writing an MC++ mixed-mode assembly (C++ and MC++) that will wrap
all TAO CORBA operations so that I can incorporate TAO into a C#
application.  I am constrained to use TAO by the customer, so I can't
use IIOP.NET.  I am constrained by the project to use C#, so I can't
use C++.

I am using VS.NET 2003, TAO 1.3a, Win2k sp4.

I have an interesting issue.  The TAO IDL compiler emits these
"Remote_Proxy_Broker" classes for each client-side interface.  These
classes each contain a "Factory Member function Implementation" of the
form:

_TAO_MyInterface_Remote_Proxy_Broker *
_TAO_MyInterface_Remote_Proxy_Broker::the_TAO_MyInterface_Remote_Proxy_Broker()
{
static ::_TAO_MyInterface_Remote_Proxy_Broker remote_proxy_broker;
return remote_proxy_broker;
}

Simple enough.  The method, which is static, declares a static instance
of its type, and returns it when called.  A singleton, in other words.

The problem is that my application crashes when trying to execute (i.e.
construct) the static instance.  The exception is a
System.NullReferenceException.  The call stack is something like:

  msvcr71.dll   __dllonexit
  mydll.dll     _onexit
  mydll.dll     atexit
  mscorwks.dll  7925de73

I can get around this problem by modifying the code and making it a
more traditional singleton, where the method declares a static pointer
to an instance, and news it if the pointer is NULL.  But this involves
hand-modifying code emitted by the TAO IDL compiler, and I am loath to
do this.

Even more fun, I found an example on the web
(http://kristopherjohnson.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/KJ/ManagedChat) that
does the same thing with a simpler CORBA interface, and his code works
fine.

Any clues?  I have read KB 814472, which seems to say that statics in a
mixed mode DLL, which is what I have, is a very bad idea and the
statics don't get initialized properly by default.  But Kris Johnson's
example works.

Thanks.

reilly.