understanding layout structures and classpaths

[end-user]

I'm working on migrating a very large, old application that has terrible inter-dependencies.  It breaks down to a war that contains the web pieces, jsps, views, etc, and core code that is referenced by pretty much everything.  The core also includes ejbs which I've annotated as such.  I'm wrapping the whole thing in to an ear for deployment.  I'm working through errors as they come up - the current one is ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.commons.pool.PoolableObjectFactory being thrown by the core.  I'm trying to verify that the classloader should actually be able to see the dependency.

application.ear

  |- commons-pool.jar

  |- core.jar

  |- web.war

If this is my structure, the class should be accessible, correct?

[end-user]

Further, what if my war has a dependency on the core?  Would I include it under WEB-INF/lib?

[jaikiran]

For regular libraries (i.e. jars not containing any managed components like EJBs etc), you will have to place them in .ear/lib directory if those libraries are to be accessible to all components and (other libraries) within the entire .ear. So in your case, you will have to create a lib directory under the .ear and move the commons-pool.jar into that directory.

You should retain the core.jar at the top level of the .ear since it contains deployable components like EJBs.

[end-user]

That really helped!  The server appears to be discovering the dependencies and loading the different deployables correctly.