David Van Couvering wrote:
A quick look at java.ext.dirs seems to indicate the intention for this is for packages with the root javax.*, which are specifically defined as extensions of J2SE. Is this really the right place to put things like third-party JAR files?
I believe it is one option (but as you indicate, not the only option) and the J2EE 1.4 specs now allow for this . http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/extensions/extensions.html is a good source of info on this topic
.
The approach I have seen is you write your own classloader that then uses a property to load classes from jar files stored in a particular directory. If I remember right, BEA's app server used to do this, quite nice.
J2EE 1.4 added the optional package support feature to make things easier to support things such as frameworks. Previously it was a nightmare dealing with this.
I know we always dump the JDBC drivers into the appservers configured lib/ext directory.
Regards Lance
David
Lance J. Andersen wrote:
That is a very good point. You could also use lib/ext as well and set the property java.ext.dirs property accordingly
Jeremy Boynes wrote:
Lance J. Andersen wrote:
There is also an issue on windows of a classpath size. I know i have been burnt by this before.
I think most projects of any size, commercial or open source, have moved away from using raw CLASSPATH and use custom classloading.
For example, a common technique is to have a "lib" directory where all files get added into a single classloader - not perfect especially when you may need multiple versions of a library but it works for many applications.
There are also things like the uberjar project at Codehaus for bundling things together.
-- Jeremy
