Should VirtualFile.toURL() really return "vfsfile:/.."

[bill.burke]

I've developed a URL handler for VFS

vfsfile:/foo/bar/ear.jar/war.war

Works fine.

My thought is that should VirtualFile.toURL() really return a "vfsfile" based url? I want to be able to use the VFS in Hibernate HEM which means that the "java.protocol.handler.pkgs" System property must be set to include the JBoss specific package that contains the VFS handler. I'm really worried that there will be issues with:

* setting this system property reliably
* having the sun classes find the handler class (URL uses Class.forName()).

Thoughts?

[bill.burke]

Also, I would hate for HEM to have to have this additional configuration step. We could set the system property within a static {} block I guess...

[starksm64]

It can be set the same way as in jboss today so that they can be overriden, and won't interfere with any existing settings:

 // Include the default JBoss protocol handler package
 String handlerPkgs = System.getProperty("java.protocol.handler.pkgs");
 if (handlerPkgs != null)
 {
 handlerPkgs += "|org.jboss.net.protocol";
 }
 else
 {
 handlerPkgs = "org.jboss.net.protocol";
 }
 System.setProperty("java.protocol.handler.pkgs", handlerPkgs);

It should be part of the vfs initialization default code.

[starksm64]

My thought is that should VirtualFile.toURL() really return a "vfsfile" based url?

Yes.

[bill.burke]

My concern was not a JBoss environment, but a Hibernate plugged into WLS, Webshpere, or Glassfish.

[starksm64]

Yes, I understand. There still should be a default initialization (that can be disabled) in the vfs factory impl. If there is an alternate mechanism in env x to setup the url protocol handlers, that still will be usable.