RMI basics help!!!

[Nandini Sriram]

Hai,
I am quite new to RMI. Can someone please tell what is local access and what is remote access? When I design an RMI application, it is suited for local access as well, right? Or should I build a class for local access separately?
Thanks
NS

[HS Thomas]

RMI is meant to be used for distributed objects and hence has overheads that do not apply(RMI should not be invoked) when accessing objects locally unless there is a VERY good reason for doing so.
regards

[HS Thomas]

RMI
may help in determining when to access remotely.
When the client and server are on the same JVM the access is local; when different the access is remote.
Note: The Server of your application can become the client of an object on another JVM and would use remote access to access the object whether on the same or different machine.

Does this help ?
regards
[ July 06, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

[Nandini Sriram]

Thanks Thomas. It helped. So when a client wants to access an object on another JVM, it uses remote access even when they are on the same machine, right?

[HS Thomas]

Yes.
If you were to have more than one JVM running on a machine, chances are you are likely to want to be able to move one of them to another machine later and hence objects should be accessed remotely between JVMs.
--I haven't tried accessing a different JVMs object locally when on the same machine .I'm sure there are ways and means but it would be pretty low-level I imagine..
regards
[ July 06, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

[Nandini Sriram]

Hello,
I have a doubt.

public class AB extends UnicastRemoteObject implement RemoteRMI { 
  A a = new A();
  ....
  ....
} // End of AB
public class A {
  ....
  ....
}

Now my doubt is this - class AB object is a remote object because of the remote interface implementation. Will the object 'a' that is defined inside the class AB also be remotely accessible, or locally accessible?
Thanks
Nandini

[Ashok Talluri]

The remote interface RemoteRMI should have a method which returns 'a' and implement in class AB.
The class A should implement Serializable.
When you call the get method for 'a' from client code, a copy of 'a'(by value) will be returned to client.
Hope that clarifies your question.