Ant EJB Tasks User Manual

• Tim Fennell (tfenne@rcn.com)
• Martin Gee (martin.gee@icsynergy.com)
• Conor MacNeill (conor@cortexebusiness.com.au)
• Greg Nelson (greg@netscape.com)

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• EJB Tasks

Introduction

EJB Tasks

ddcreator

Description:

Parameters:

Examples

<ddcreator descriptors="${dd.dir}" 
           dest="${gen.classes}" 
           classpath="${descriptorbuild.classpath}">
  <include name="*.txt" />
</ddcreator>

ejbc

Description:

The ant task which runs this tool is able to compile several beans in a single operation. The beans to be compiled are selected by including their serialised deployment descriptors. The standard ant include and exclude constructs can be used to select the deployment descriptors to be included.

Each descriptor is examined to determine whether the generated classes are out of date and need to be regenerated. The deployment descriptor is de-serialized to discover the home, remote and implementation classes. The corresponding source files are determined and checked to see their modification times. These times and the modification time of the serialised descriptor itself are compared with the modification time of the generated classes. If the generated classes are not present or are out of date, the ejbc tool is run to generate new versions.

Parameters:

Examples

<ejbc descriptors="${gen.classes}"
           src="${src.dir}" 
           dest="${gen.classes}"
           manifest="${build.manifest}" 
           classpath="${descriptorbuild.classpath}">
  <include name="*.ser" />
</ejbc>

iplanet-ejbc

Description:

For each EJB specified, the task will locate the three classes that comprise the EJB in the destination directory.  If these class files cannot be located in the destination directory, the task will fail. The task will also attempt to locate the EJB stubs and skeletons in this directory. If found, the timestamps on the stubs and skeletons will be checked to ensure they are up to date. Only if these files cannot be found or if they are out of date will the iPlanet Application Server ejbc utility be called to generate new stubs and skeletons.

Parameters:

Examples

<iplanet-ejbc ejbdescriptor="ejb-jar.xml"
              iasdescriptor="ias-ejb-jar.xml"
              dest="${build.classesdir}" 
              classpath="${ias.ejbc.cpath}" />

<iplanet-ejbc ejbdescriptor="ejb-jar.xml"
              iasdescriptor="ias-ejb-jar.xml"
              dest="${build.classesdir}" 
              keepgenerated="yes"
              debug="yes"
              iashome="${ias.home}" >
              <classpath>
                  <pathelement path="." />
                  <pathelement path="${build.classpath}" />
              </classpath>
</iplanet-ejbc>

---

wlrun

Description:

Parameters:

Nested Elements

Examples

    <wlrun taskname="myserver"
           classpath="${weblogic.boot.classpath}"
           wlclasspath="${weblogic.classes}:${code.jars}"
           name="myserver" 
           home="${weblogic.home}"
           properties="myserver/myserver.properties"/>

    <wlrun taskname="petstore"
           classpath="${weblogic.classes}"
           name="petstoreServer" 
           domain="petstore" 
           home="${weblogic.home}"
           password="petstorePassword"
           beahome="${bea.home}"/>

wlstop

Description:

This task works for most version of Weblogic, including 6.0. You need to specify the BEA Home to have this task work correctly under 6.0

Parameters:

Nested Element

Examples

    <wlstop classpath="${weblogic.classes}"
            user="system"
            url="t3://localhost:7001"
            password="foobar"
            beahome="${bea.home}"/>

ejbjar

Description:

• an element for building Weblogic 5.1/6.0 session/entity beans using the weblogic.ejbc tool.
• an element for building TOPLink for WebLogic 2.5.1-enabled entity beans.
• an element for building iPlanet Application Server 6.0 enterprise java beans.

The task works as a directory scanning task, and performs an action for each deployment descriptor found. As such the includes and excludes should be set to ensure that all desired EJB1.1 descriptors are found, but no application server descriptors are found. For each descriptor found, ejbjar will parse the deployment descriptor to determine the necessary class files which implement the bean. These files are assembled along with the deployment descriptors into a well formed EJB jar file. Any support files which need to be included in the generated jarcan be added with the <support> nested element. For each class included in the jar, ejbjar will scan for any super classes or super interfaces. These will be added to the generated jar.

If no nested vendor-specific deployment elements are present, the task will simply generate a generic EJB jar. Such jars are typically used as the input to vendor-specific deployment tools. For each nested deployment element, a vendor specific deployment tool is run to generate a jar file ready for deployment in that vendor's EJB container.

The jar files are only built if they are out of date. Each deployment tool element will examine its target jar file and determine if it is out of date with respect to the class files and deployment descriptors that make up the bean. If any of these files are newer than the jar file the jar will be rebuilt otherwise a message is logged that the jar file is up to date.

Parameters:

Nested Elements

Classpath

dtd

support

Vendor-specific deployment elements

Weblogic element

There are a few problems with this scheme. It does not allow for more than one CMP descriptor to be defined in a jar and it is not compatible with the deployment descriptors generated by some tools.

In Ant 1.3, ejbjar parses the weblogic deployment descriptor to discover the CMP descriptors, which are then included automatically. This behaviour is controlled by the newCMP attribute. Note that if you move to the new method of determining CMP descriptors, you will need to update your weblogic deployment descriptor's <type-storage> element. In the above example, you would define this as META-INF/Customer-weblogic-cmp-rdbms-jar.xml.
 

Attribute	Description	Required
destdir	The base directory into which the generated weblogic ready jar files are deposited. Jar files are deposited in directories corresponding to their location within the descriptordir namespace.	Yes
genericjarsuffix	A generic jar is generated as an intermediate step in build the weblogic deployment jar. The suffix used to generate the generic jar file is not particularly important unless it is desired to keep the generic jar file. It should not, however, be the same as the suffix setting.	No, defaults to '-generic.jar'.
suffix	String value appended to the basename of the deployment descriptor to create the filename of the WebLogic EJB jar file.	No, defaults to '.jar'.
classpath	The classpath to be used when running the weblogic ejbc tool. Note that this tool typically requires the classes that make up the bean to be available on the classpath. Currently, however, this will cause the ejbc tool to be run in a separate VM	No
wlclasspath	Weblogic 6.0 will give a warning if the home and remote interfaces of a bean are on the system classpath used to run weblogic.ejbc. In that case, the standard weblogic classes should be set with this attribute (or equivalent nested element) and the home and remote interfaces located with the standard classpath attribute	No
keepgeneric	This controls whether the generic file used as input to ejbc is retained.	No, defaults to false
compiler	This allows for the selection of a different compiler to be used for the compilation of the generated Java files. This could be set, for example, to Jikes to compile with the Jikes compiler.	No
rebuild	This flag controls whether weblogic.ejbc is always invoked to build the jar file. In certain circumstances, such as when only a bean class has been changed, the jar can be generated by merely replacing the changed classes and not rerunning ejbc. Setting this to false will reduce the time to run ejbjar.	No, defaults to true.
keepgenerated	Controls whether weblogic will keep the generated Java files used to build the class files added to the jar. This can be useful when debugging	No, defaults to false.
args	Any additional arguments to be passed to the weblogic.ejbc tool.	No.
weblogicdtd	Deprecated. Defines the location of the ejb-jar DTD in the weblogic class hierarchy. This should not be necessary if you have weblogic in your classpath. If you do not, you should use a nested <dtd> element, described above. If you do choose to use an attribute, you should use the ejbdtd attribute in preference to this one, anyway.	No.
wldtd	Deprecated. Defines the location of the weblogic-ejb-jar DTD which covers the Weblogic specific deployment descriptors. This should not be necessary if you have weblogic in your classpath. If you do not, you should use a nested <dtd> element, described above.	No.
ejbdtd	Deprecated. Defines the location of the ejb-jar DTD in the weblogic class hierarchy. This should not be necessary if you have weblogic in your classpath. If you do not, you should use a nested <dtd> element, described above.	No.
newCMP	If this is set to true, the ne wmethod for locating CMP descriptors will be used.	No. Defaults to false
oldCMP	Deprecated This is an antonym for newCMP which should be used instead.	No.

The weblogic nested element itself supports two nested elements <classpath> and <wlclasspath> which are used to set the respective classpaths. These nested elements are useful when setting up class paths using reference Ids.

TOPLink for Weblogic element

Examples

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.classes}"
            descriptordir="${descriptor.dir}">
      <weblogic destdir="${deploymentjars.dir}"
                classpath="${descriptorbuild.classpath}"/>
      <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/>
      <exclude name="**/*weblogic*.xml"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar descriptordir="${src.dir}" srcdir="${build.classes}">
       <weblogic destdir="${deployment.webshop.dir}" 
                 keepgeneric="true"
                 args="-g -keepgenerated ${ejbc.compiler}"
                 suffix=".jar"
                 oldCMP="false">
         <classpath>
           <pathelement path="${descriptorbuild.classpath}"/>
         </classpath>
       </weblogic>
       <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/> 
       <exclude name="**/*-weblogic-ejb-jar.xml"/>
       <dtd publicId="-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1//EN"
            location="${weblogic.home}/classes/weblogic/ejb/deployment/xml/ejb-jar.dtd"/>
       <dtd publicId="-//BEA Systems, Inc.//DTD WebLogic 5.1.0 EJB//EN"
            location="${weblogic.home}/classes/weblogic/ejb/deployment/xml/weblogic-ejb-jar.dtd"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.classes}"
            descriptordir="${descriptor.dir}"
            basejarname="TheEJBJar">
      <weblogic destdir="${deploymentjars.dir}"
                classpath="${descriptorbuild.classpath}"/>
      <include name="**/ejb-jar.xml"/>
      <exclude name="**/weblogic*.xml"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.dir}"
            destdir="${solant.ejb.dir}"
            descriptordir="${descriptor.dir}"
            basejarname="Address">
            <weblogictoplink destdir="${solant.ejb.dir}"
                    classpath="${java.class.path}"
                    keepgeneric="false"
                    toplinkdescriptor="Address.xml"
                    toplinkdtd="file:///dtdfiles/toplink-cmp_2_5_1.dtd"
                    suffix=".jar"/>
            <include name="**/ejb-jar.xml"/>
            <exclude name="**/weblogic-ejb-jar.xml"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar descriptordir="${dd.dir}" srcdir="${build.classes.server}">
       <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/> 
       <exclude name="**/*-weblogic-ejb-jar.xml"/>
       <support dir="${build.classes.server}">
            <include name="**/*.class"/> 
       </support>
       <weblogic destdir="${deployment.dir}" 
                 keepgeneric="true"
                 suffix=".jar"
                 rebuild="false">
         <classpath>
            <pathelement path="${build.classes.server}"/>
         </classpath>
         <wlclasspath>
            <pathelement path="${weblogic.classes}"/>
         </wlclasspath>
       </weblogic>
    </ejbjar>

iPlanet Application Server (iAS) element

Like the WebLogic element, a naming convention for the EJB descriptors is most commonly used to specify the name for the completed JAR file.  For example, if the EJB descriptor ejb/Account-ejb-jar.xml is found in the descriptor directory, the iplanet element will search for an EJB descriptor specific to iPlanet Application Server file named ejb/Account-ias-ejb-jar.xml (if it isn't found, the task will fail) and a JAR file named ejb/Account.jar will be written in the destination directory.  Note that when the EJB descriptors are added to the JAR file, they are automatically renamed META-INF/ejb-jar.xml and META-INF/ias-ejb-jar.xml.

Of course, this naming behavior can be modified by specifying attributes in the ejbjar task (for example, basejarname, basenameterminator, and flatdestdir) as well as the iplanet element (for example, suffix).  Refer to the appropriate documentation for more details.

The <iplanet> nested element parses the EJB deployment descriptor specific to iPlanet Application Server to determine if the bean requires one or more CMP descriptors.  These descriptors are specified using the <properties-file-location> element--the value of this element specifies where the CMP descriptor must be placed in the completed EJB JAR file.  If any are found, the <iplanet> element will search for the CMP descriptors in the same directory as the standard EJB descriptor and will automatically add the file to the EJB JAR.

Parameters:

As noted above, the iplanet element supports additional <classpath> nested elements.

Examples

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.classesdir}"
            descriptordir="${src}" >
            <iplanet destdir="${assemble.ejbjar}"
                     classpath="${ias.ejbc.cpath}" />
            <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/>
            <exclude name="**/*ias-*.xml"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.classesdir}"
            descriptordir="${src}" >
            <iplanet destdir="${assemble.ejbjar}"
                     iashome="${ias.home}"
                     debug="yes" 
                     keepgenerated="yes" >
                     <classpath>
                         <pathelement path="." />
                         <pathelement path="${build.classpath}" />
                     </classpath>
            </iplanet>
            <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/>
            <exclude name="**/*ias-*.xml"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.classesdir}"
            descriptordir="${src}"
            basejarname="HelloWorld" >
            <iplanet destdir="${assemble.ejbjar}"
                     classpath="${ias.ejbc.cpath}"/>
            <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/>
            <exclude name="**/*ias-*.xml"/>
    </ejbjar>

    <ejbjar srcdir="${build.classesdir}"
            descriptordir="${src}" > 
            <iplanet destdir="${assemble.ejbjar}"            >
                     classpath="${ias.ejbc.cpath}" />
            <include name="**/*-ejb-jar.xml"/>
            <exclude name="**/*ias-*.xml"/>
            <dtd publicId="-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1//EN"
                 location="${ias.home}/APPS/ejb-jar_1_1.dtd"/>
            <dtd publicId="-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD iAS Enterprise JavaBeans 1.0//EN"
                 location="${ias.home}/APPS/IASEjb_jar_1_0.dtd"/>
    </ejbjar>