JEE 5 packaging + add jars to ejb modules

[gr28]

Hi,

Our environment:
JBoss 4.2.1 with > 30 EJB Modules
Java 5

For specific ejb modules it is required to add certain third party jars. It would be great to pack the libraries into the specific EJB module. The libraries should not be in the global ear/lib directory.

I assumed it would work, by using the META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
Adding the Class-Path:

Class-Path:lib/external.jar

So the structure of my ear file would be:

ear
 - module_1.jar
 - lib
 - external.jar
 - META-INF
 - MANIFEST.MF (including the classpath entry)
 - module_2.jar

What I found out, that this does not work. The required library (external.jar) is not available in the classpath. Does anybody know a solution for packing the application this way?

br, Georg Raffer

--
http://www.im-consultants.at

[cangelim]

Hi, Georg

You can't put a jar file inside another jar file. One solution is to reference external.jar as a shared lib inside ear's application.xml

Your packaging layout would become:

ear
 - module_1.jar
 - module_2.jar
 - lib
 - external.jar

and your application.xml would be something like this, assuming all files 'module_X.jar' are ejb modules:

<application xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
 http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/application_5_0.xsd"
 version="5.0">

 <module>
 <ejb>module_1.jar</ejb>
 </module>

 <module>
 <ejb>module_2.jar</ejb>
 </module>

 <library-directory>lib</library-directory>

</application>

Cheers,