ejb-link tag

[Swamy Nathan]

The bean provider may put together some beans. If a bean uses another bean the bean provider can use the <ejb-ref> or <ejb-local-ref> tags to refer to the other bean in the deployment descriptor.
He will have to provide a The lookupNameForCode in the <ejb-ref-name> child tag.
He will also have to carry out the following additional steps:-
a) He will have to allow this lookupNameForCode to be mapped to a real JNDI name in a vendor specific fashion.
b) He has to specify the fully qualified name of the home interface & component interface.

Q1) Am I right in assuming that this referred bean may not have been registered in any deployment descriptor and that is why he has to do all this?

When the application assembler assembles the application he finds that all this work can be simply done by a <ejb-link> tag.
Q2) When a <ejb-link> tag is provided does the info provided by steps (a) and (b) become unnecessary?

[Nileesha Bojjawar]

Hi Swamy,

Please refer to the spec 20.3.2 Application Assemblers responsibilities.

ejb-link is an optional element on the ejb-ref or erb-localref tags which menas you cannot eliminate the defination of these tags.
No you cannot assume that this referred bean may not have been registered in any deployment descriptor and that is why he has to do all this.
The ejb-link tag is used by the application assembler to link the bean to another bena defined anywhere in the application and to avoid the changes to the names of the beans he can use the link with the path descriptor so that the need for the uniqueness of the bean names can be eliminated.

Hope this helps, but point to me if i am wrong.

Regards

[Swamy Nathan]

Why do the following again-
a) He will have to allow this lookupNameForCode to be mapped to a real JNDI name in a vendor specific fashion.
b) He has to specify the fully qualified name of the home interface & component interface.
when using the <ejb-link> tag can itself be used to identify the bean somewhere else in a Deployment Descriptor.
Was not the information (a-the real JNDI name) and (b) already there in the bean pointed at by the <ejb-link> tag?
The only reason that comes to my mind is that (a) and (b) was done because the bean was not defined in a Deployment Descriptor.

P.S. I have yet to read the specs so I might be wrong.