# Ant EJB Tasks User Manual

by

- Tim Fennell (tfenne@rcn.com)
- Conor MacNeill (conor@cortexebusiness.com.au)

Version 1.1 - 2000/07/18

## Table of Contents

- Introduction
- EJB Tasks

## Introduction

Ant provides a number of optional tasks for developing Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). In general these tasks are specific to the particular vendor's EJB Server. At present the tasks support Weblogic 4.5.1 and 5.1 EJB servers. Over time we expect further optional tasks to support additional EJB Servers.

## EJB Tasks

Task | Application Servers
ddcreator | Weblogic 4.5.1
ejbc | Weblogic 4.5.1
wlrun | Weblogic 4.5.1 and 5.1
wlstop | Weblogic 4.5.1 and 5.1
ejbjar | Weblogic 5.1

## ddcreator

### Description:

ddcreator will compile a set of Weblogic text-based deployment descriptors into a serialized EJB deployment descriptor. The selection of which of the text-based descriptors are to be compiled is based on the standard Ant include and exclude selection mechanisms.

### Parameters:

Attribute | Description | Required
descriptors | This is the base directory from which descriptors are selected. | Yes
dest | The directory where the serialised deployment descriptors will be written | Yes
classpath | This is the classpath to use to run the underlying weblogic ddcreator tool. This must include the `weblogic.ejb.utils.DDCreator` class | No

### Examples

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

## ejbc

### Description:

The ejbc task will run Weblogic's ejbc tool. This tool will take a serialised deployment descriptor, examine the various EJB interfaces and bean classes and then generate the required support classes necessary to deploy the bean in a Weblogic EJB container. This will include the RMI stubs and skeletons as well as the classes which implement the bean's home and remote interfaces.

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Each descriptor is examined to determiune whether the generated classes are out of date and need to be regenerated.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:

Attribute | Description | Required
descriptors | This is the base directory from which the serialised deployment descriptors are selected. | Yes
dest | The base directory where the generated classes, RIM stubs and RMI skeletons are written | Yes
manifest | The name of a manifest file to be written. This manifest will contain an entry for each EJB processed | Yes
src | The base directory of the source tree containing the source files of the home interface, remote interface and bean implementation classes. | Yes
classpath | This classpath must include both the `weblogic.ejbc` class and the classfiles of the bean, home interface, remote interface, etc of the bean being processed. | No

### Examples

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

## wlrun

### Description:

The `wlrun` task is used to start a weblogic server. The task runs a weblogic instance in a separate Java Virtual Machine. A number of parameters are used to control the operation of the weblogic instance. Note that the task, and hence ant, will not complete until the weblogic instance is stopped.

### Parameters:

Attribute | Description | Required
home | The location of the weblogic home that is to be used. This is the location where weblogic is installed. | Yes
classpath | The classpath to be used with the Java Virtual Machine that runs the Weblogic Server. This is typically set to the Weblogic boot classpath. | Yes
wlclasspath | The weblogic classpath used by the Weblogic Server. | No
properties | The name of the server's properties file within the weblogic home directory used to control the weblogic instance. | Yes
name | The name of the weblogic server within the weblogic home which is to be run. This defaults to "myserver" | No
policy | The name of the security policy file within the weblogic home directory that is to be used. If not specified, the default policy file `weblogic.policy` is used. | No
jvmargs | Additional argument string passed to the Java Virtual Machine used to run the Weblogic instance. | No
args | Additional argument string passed to the Weblogic instance. | No

## wlstop

### Description:

The `wlstop` task is used to stop a weblogic instance which is currently running. To shut down an instance you must supply both a username and a password. These will be stored in the clear in the build script used to stop the instance. For security reasons, this task is therefore only appropriate in a development environment.

### Parameters:

Attribute | Description | Required
classpath | The classpath to be used with the Java Virtual Machine that runs the Weblogic Shutdown comment. | Yes
user | The username of the account which will be used to shutdown the server | Yes
password | The password for the account specified in the user parameter. | Yes
url | The URL which describes the port to which the server is listening for T3 connections. For example, t3://localhost:7001 | Yes
delay | The delay in seconds after which the server will stop. This defaults to an immediate shutdown. | No

## ejbjar

### Description:

This task is designed to support building of arbitrary EJB1.1 jar files. Support is currently provided for 'vanilla' EJB1.1 jar files - i.e. those containing only the user generated class files and the standard deployment descriptor. Nested elements provide support for vendor specific deployment tools. Currently, a nested element is provided for building Weblogic 5.1 session/entity beans using the weblogic.ejbc tool as well as a nested element for building TOPLink for WebLogic 2.5.1-enabled entity beans.

This task supports two approaches to creating ejb jar files. The first approach assumes a particular naming convention for deployment descriptor files. For an Account bean, for example, the deployment descriptor would be named `Account-ejb-jar.xml`. This naming convention allows the task to distinguish deployment descriptors without relying on their positioning within a source tree. It is also used to derive the name of the .jar file which is generated. For the example this would be `Account.jar`. Vendor specific files are assumed to be named in a similar fashion. The deployment descriptor file which defines additional weblogic specific information for the above bean would be `Account-weblogic-ejb-jar.xml`. The second approach does not require a naming convention. This approach uses a specified a jar name for the resultant ejb jar. If the jar name is present, then no naming convention is required. If the jar name is not specified, then the default naming convention is expected for the deployment descriptor files.

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. Note that support classes used by the bean but which are not part of the bean's interfaces are not included in the assembled jar. These need to be collected into a separate support jar file.

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. Note that at this time the only supported tool is Weblogic's ejbc tool.

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:

Attribute | Description | Required
descriptordir | The base directory under which to scan for EJB deployment descriptors. If this attribute is not specified, then the deployment descriptors must be located in the directory specified by the 'srcdir' attribute. | No
srcdir | The base directory containing the .class files that make up the bean. Note that this can be the same as the descriptordir if all files are in the same directory tree. | Yes
destdir | The base directory into which generated jar files are deposited. Jar files are deposited in directories correpsonding to their location within the descriptordir namespace. Note that this attribute is only used if the task is generating generic jars (i.e. no vendor-specific deployment elements have been specified). | Yes
basejarname | The base name that is used for the generated jar files. If this attribute is specified, the generic jar file name will use this value as the prefix (followed by the value specified in the 'genericjarsuffix' attibute) and the resultant ejb jar file (followed by any suffix specified in the nested element). | No
basenameterminator | String value used to substring out a string from the name of each deployment descriptor found, which is then used to locate related deployment descriptors (e.g. the WebLogic descriptors). For example, a basename of '.' and a deployment descriptor called 'FooBean.ejb-jar.xml' would result in a basename of 'FooBean' which would then be used to find FooBean.weblogic-ejb-jar.xml and FooBean.weblogic-cmp-rdbms-jar.xml, as well as to create the filenames of the jar files as FooBean-generic.jar and FooBean-wl.jar. This attribute is not used if the 'basejarname' attribute is specified. | No, defaults to '-'.
genericjarsuffix | String value appended to the basename of the deployment descriptor to create the filename of the generic EJB jar file. | No, defaults to '-generic.jar'.

### Vendor-specific deployment elements

Each vendor-specific nested element controls the generation of a deployable jar specific to that vendor's EJB container. The parameters for each supported deployment element are detailed here.

### Weblogic element

Attribute | Description | Required
destdir | The base directory into which the generated weblogic ready jar files are deposited. Jar files are deposited in directories correpsonding to their location within the descriptordir namespace. | Yes
genericjarsuffix | A generic jar is generated as an intermeditate 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
keepgeneric | This controls whether the generic fiule used as input to ejbc is retained. | No, defaults to false

### TOPLink for Weblogic element

Attribute | Description | Required
destdir | The base directory into which the generated weblogic ready jar files are deposited. Jar files are deposited in directories correpsonding to their location within the descriptordir namespace. | Yes
genericjarsuffix | A generic jar is generated as an intermeditate 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
keepgeneric | This controls whether the generic file used as input to ejbc is retained. | No, defaults to false
toplinkdescriptor | This specifes the name of the TOPLink deployment descriptor file contained in the 'descriptordir' directory. | Yes
toplinkdtd | This specifies the location of the TOPLink DTD file. This can be a file path or a file URL. This attribute is not required, but using a local DTD is recommended. | No, defaults to dtd file at www.objectpeople.com.

### Examples

This example shows ejbjar being used to generate deployment jars using a Weblogic EJB container. This example requires the naming standard to be used for the deployment descriptors. Using this format will create a ejb jar file for each variation of '*-ejb-jar.xml' that is found in the deployment descriptor directory.

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

This example shows ejbjar being used to generate a single deployment jar using a Weblogic EJB container. This example does not require the deployment descriptors to use the naming standard. This will create only one ejb jar file - 'TheEJBJar.jar'.

        <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>

This example shows ejbjar being used to generate deployment jars for a TOPLink-enabled entity bean using a Weblogic EJB container. This example does not require the deployment descriptors to use the naming standard. This will create only one TOPLink-enabled ejb jar file - 'Address.jar'.

        <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>