Holscher, David M at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> Correct, that's why it's not advisable to put it there. $CATALINA_HOME/lib
>> is there just because sometimes you want to have libraries accessible by
>> all your web applications WITHOUT putting them in $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext.
>
> Yes, there are lots of things that are not advisable. I'm just saying that
> having a way to extend the places where I look for jar files for a web-app
> is no worse than existence of the $CATALINA_HOME/lib.
I tend to disagree with you. If you consider the fact that everything under
$JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext is considered "trusted" code by the VM when you
install a SecurityManager, while code in $CATALINA_HOME/lib is not.
$CATALINA_HOME/lib is there for a reason...
>> Yes, but at this point I don't quite get WHY you have to have a JAR file
>> specifically tied to a single Web Application in a directory != from your
>> WEB-INF/lib... It there a solid explanation on why you need this behavior?
>>
> We have a set of jar files used by several programs which are not web
> applications. We have a single web app which uses some of the jar files. It
> does not make sense for the programs that are not web applications to use
> jar files in the WEB-INF/lib directory nor does it make sense for the web
> application to use files outside that directory. So when we build a
> production release we make sure we have copies of the jar files in the right
> places. However, in development when I make a change to a source file there
> is much less pain involved if I don't have to make sure to copy the
> resulting change to the jar file into all of the places it is needed. It is
> simply easier to point the applications that need it to the central
> location. Please don't answer that I should have the build script make extra
> copies of the jar files (which will cause configuration management issues)
> and please don't answer that the central location be the WEB-INF/lib
> directory because most of our developers don't see that directory. I simply
> want to know if it is possible to extend the library path for a web
> application. At this point, I'm sure the answer is no.
Well, the answer IS of course "no"... :) If you imply such a configuration
mechanism (like specify a "classpath" for every web-application) there might
be issues from when you move stuff around (like, from your classpath, to
WEB-INF/lib), especially in terms of security and class loading issues.
I believe that it can be easily solved by putting down some symlinks in your
WEB-INF/lib, so that when you jar up the final "release" you don't even care
what you need to copy over or not...
Pier
