Re: [wtp-dev] status and issues with annotated EJB and servlet support

[John Lanuti <jlanuti@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Naci,

I have made some progress today.  I
was finally able to get an ejb created and the xdoclet engine running in
a wtp development environment.
However, the amount of churn and detailed
set up makes me think we need to make this a lot easier for a user and
we need to create a very
detailed step by step tutorial of how
to set up and use WTP and XDoclet to create session beans.

I was able to get the xdoclet set up
in the preferences, but the only way I saw it working was if the jars were
in a "lib" directory.  Nothing led me to 
believe that when I extracted the xdoclet
jars as they came, and they were not in a lib directory, that I would need
to create one.  This is either
something we should not force the user
or something that needs to be explicitly called out.

I did switch your use of the JETEmitter
in EJBEmitter to use the more custom WTPJetEmitter which allowed me to
generate session beans
in a development environment.  This
change was released to head.

But even then I was unable to get the
xdoclet engine to generate my ejb classes and artifacts.  The generated
ant task does not sufficiently set
up the classpath so that the server
target jars are added to the ant classpath.  This causes the generation
to fail.  I was able to get around this by
manually adding the j2ee.jar to the
xdoclet home lib directory.   Again, this is another manual step required
by the user that is not obvious by any
means.  We need to call this out
explicitly or we need to do a better job of grabbing this jar from the
server target automatically.

After adding the j2ee.jar, I was able
to get the artifacts and deployment descriptors generated.  However,
the ejb-jar.xml would not parse and could
not be loaded.  I haven't had a
chance to look into this, but maybe you could.  Are you seeing the
same results?

Also, we should not be adding the xdoclet
builder in the create bean operation.  We will need to discuss ways
where the builder can be added optionally,
ways that are extendable and configurable.
 This can be done in M4

We will also need to discuss ways we
can make the creation wizards configurable.  We can't force our implementation
of how to create a bean on every
user of an open framework.  This
can be done in M4 too.

The base should be stable now.  It
would be great if you could get the web builder going so we can test the
output of the servlet creation wizard.

I am going to be working on a tutorial
on how to set up and create an annotated servlet.  Do you want to
do the same for a session bean, or if you provide
me with any detailed steps I may be
missing, I could work on that as well.  These tutorials are great
ways to get the community educated and in testing
the function provided.

Thanks,

John Lanuti
Software Engineer, IBM Rational
jlanuti@xxxxxxxxxx
t/l 441-7861

"Well, in the end, my friend, we will all be together again."
 -Of A Revolution
"I'll be awful sometimes, weakened to my knees, but I'll learn to
get by on the little victories."  - Matt Nathanson

Naci Dai <naci.dai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: wtp-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx

02/15/2005 04:02 AM

Please respond to
wtp-dev

To	wtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
cc
Subject	Re: [wtp-dev] status and issues with annotated EJB and servlet  support in M3

At 11:28 PM 2/14/2005, John Lanuti wrote:

Hey Naci, 

The J2EE team has been making some pretty large changes today with respect
to edit models and the j2ee core models.  We have
been updating your code as necessary to fix compile issues.  With
that in mind, and the recent upgrade to eclipse M5, I figured now was
a good time to level set where we are at for the annotated servlet and
ejb creation line item for M3.  

First of all, code assist seems to be working well and all the tags for
the ejb and servlet xdoc are showing up. 

XDoc Preferences 

Issue #1 - Window>Preferences - Go to XDoclet tag and choose a XDoclet
runtime.  From this page, I am not able to specify an xdoclet home.
I downloaded the xdoclet runtime jars for 1.2.2, but I always get this
error: 

John,

-This check adds the path /lib/zz.jar to the home you have selected in
the dialog (i.e c:/xdoclet1.2.2).  Are you sure you have chosen the
right folder?




EJB Creation 
  
I do see the xdoclet builder being added to EJB projects and the menu option
to create the session bean.  The wizard does come up as well.

Issue #2 - Hitting finish on create session bean throws the following
stack trace for me. 

- Are you testing in a development workspace?  If so JET emitter has
a defect for setting classpaths (It can only use real jars!).  To
work around, you need to build the plugin jars for the  j2ee, annotation.model
annotation.emitter plugins in your workspace.  This lets the JET emitter
to add the plugins to its classpath via variables.

 Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
            at org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.InternalPlatform.asLocalURL(InternalPlatform.java:201)
            at org.eclipse.core.runtime.Platform.asLocalURL(Platform.java:481)
            at org.eclipse.emf.codegen.jet.JETEmitter.addVariable(JETEmitter.java:533)
            at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.ejb.annotations.internal.emitter.EjbEmitter.createJetEmitter(EjbEmitter.java:73)

Issue #3 - We really need to make this wizard more accessible.  The
menu should show up on the session bean group in the project explorer,
on the ejb jar, and 
on the ejb project.  We will eventually want a generic ejb creation
wizard which embeds each type of bean creation wizard.  This ejb creation
wizard should 
have an icon on the toolbar. 

Agreed


Servlet Creation 

The servlet wizard does come up and it creates a valid annotated xdoclet
servlet upon finish.  I tried to use the code from the ejb operation
to add the xdoclet 
builder to the web project, just like for the ejb project.  I'm not
sure if this is valid or not. 

Builder should be similar but needs a few changes (i.e. recognize annotated
java needs a few more cases).  Also, xdoclet ant scripts for web projects
is slightly different.

We will look into it once the code base stabilizes


Issue #4 - Web projects and servlet creation need
to be set up to use the xdoclet builder.  The operation is there,
NewServletClassOperation.  You just need 
to hook in the xdoclet builder, so on a build we will have the deployment
descriptor artifacts generated. 

Same as above


General Thoughts 

Issue #5 - The xdoc specification now supports J2EE 1.4.  Do we
want to go ahead and add the tags for the content assist for J2EE 1.4?
 If I added the tags, would that imply any more work on your part?


Very little.  All we need to do is transfer version info from modules
to xdoclet scripts


Issue #6  - Do we really want to keep the
xdoc generation as part of a build?  We'll have to dive deeper into
all the pro's and con's of action vs. builder.. 

As I pointed this earlier.  They both have pros and cons.  My
current view is it is nice to keep both and make the builders optional
but active as default.


Issue #7 - We cannot use hardcoded spec versions,
we should definately get this info from the module or from the wizard.


See above

Issue #8 - What's the deal again with a JBoss runtime
to test these beans we will be creating? 

I can test it without JBoss server plugin.  JBoss comitters are presumably
fixing it. However, you can use the generic server support.  We already
tested with JBoss 3.2.3, Jonas 4 and WebLogic 8.1


John Lanuti
Software Engineer, IBM Rational
jlanuti@xxxxxxxxxx
t/l 441-7861

"Well, in the end, my friend, we will all be together again."
 -Of A Revolution
"I'll be awful sometimes, weakened to my knees, but I'll learn to
get by on the little victories."  - Matt Nathanson



Naci Dai <naci.dai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: wtp-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx 

02/06/2005 09:27 AM

Please respond to
wtp-dev

To

wtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx

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Subject

[wtp-dev] EJB Support 




Our EJB contribution is committed to CVS. The initial EJB/Xdoclet components
support the following use cases:

0) Use Case-0:  Edit/Setup Preferences:  Window>Preferences
- Go to XDoclet tag and choose a XDoclet runtime (1.2.2/1.2.1 are supported).
 visit the ejbdoclet page, choose the servers that you would like
to auto-generate deployment-descriptors.  Apply.

1) Use case-I:  
- Project Wizard:  New > Ejb > Create EJB Project >Create
an EJB Project, choose a J2EE Runtime.  Currently you can only choose
J2EE Library o compile against.  (Server Team should probably look
into getting this work with a real server.)

- Create A Session EJB:  New > Ejb > Create Session Bean, enter
Session bean config parameters, click next choose a package, modify the
class parameters. Click Finish.

    - A Session Bean is created including a sample business method.
    - EJB Builder is added to the project
    - Builder generates all EJB classes for the beans in the
module and adds them to the ejb-jar.xml

The support for other types of EJBs are also in place but we would like
to get some feedback on the current work before we go further.

2) Use Case-II:  Open and edit your Session Bean ( the class with
the Bean suffix).  Add a method or modify other things.  You
will get code assist for XDoclet tags.  Save.
    - Builder kicks in and generates all EJB classes for the
beans in the module and adds them to the ejb-jar.xml


There are a few experimental features/issues for consideration:
       - We use a builder to generate derived artifacts.
 We need to asses the performance issues.  Alternative is using
manual actions
       - The derived code is generated in to the same source
folder.  Eventually we would like to separate it.
       - Multiple modules in the same project should work,
NOT tested
       - There are a few hard coded things such as EJB spec
version.  We will change it to get it from the EJBModule

Have not been tested on a server runtime due to lack of a server runtime
that supports EJB modules.


The related plugins are:
org.eclipse.jst.common.launcher.ant 
Provides ant script execution support.  Used by the XDoclet builder
to run ejbdoclet tasks

org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.ejb.annotation.model
Provides command objects and operations used by the Wizards and JET Emitters

org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.ejb.annotations.emitter
Extensible framework to support different annotation technologies and builders.
 Provides API for annotation emitters and builder and support for
template (JET) based code generation

org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.ejb.annotations.ui
EJB Wizards

org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.ejb.annotations.xdoclet
Extension of the annotations.emitter to support XDoclet.  Contains
emitter extensions, XDoclet builder and XDoclet preferences


       
        

Naci Dai,
Managing Director

eteration a.s. 
Inonu cad. Sumer sok. Zitas D1-15
Kozyatagi, Istanbul 81090
+90 (532) 573 7783 (cell) 
+90 (216) 361 5434 (phone) 
+90 (216) 361 2034 (fax) 
http://www.eteration.com
mailto:nacidai@xxxxxxx
mailto:naci@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



Naci Dai,
Managing Director

eteration a.s. 
Inonu cad. Sumer sok. Zitas D1-15
Kozyatagi, Istanbul 81090
+90 (532) 573 7783 (cell) 
+90 (216) 361 5434 (phone) 
+90 (216) 361 2034 (fax) 
http://www.eteration.com
mailto:nacidai@xxxxxxx
mailto:naci@xxxxxxxxxxxxx