stubs, skeletons, home objects and interfaces

[Adam Hardy]

This is a question about the structure and naming of J2EE / distributed component parts.
I'm looking at a sort of generic diagram, probably UML of a very simple distributed set-up where a client contacts a server. I see the client calls the remote interface on the client machine using a stub.
I also see that a skeleton receives the request from the client over the network, and calls the distributed component in the appserver container.
My question is about the way this relates to EJB in terms of which EJB classes run on which machines, and which are stubs and which are skeletons.
The intro that I'm reading doesn't really make this clear, at least not to me.
In my client code, I look up a reference to a home object using JNDI, and use the home object to create my client-side enterprise bean reference. Does this mean the home object is a stub?
Or do the home object and the enterprise bean both have stubs and skeletons? Or what?
Thanks in advance for any lucid explanation!

[Mr. C Lamont Gilbert]

stubs and skeletons are not directly related to EJB. This is related to RMI which EJB may use to communicate across distance. RMI is used for distributed computing. if you want to know about how RMI works ask in the RMI forum.
stubs and skeletons are invisible to the EJB user. Do you still wish to know about them? If so probably should learn them after you learn EJB since it will distract you now.

[Adam Hardy]

I'm already distracted by them, hence my question. However I'm quite happy to forget about them. The book in which I'm reading up about EJB brought the subject up and just left it hanging there.
I couldn't piece it together within the EJB framework, which in the light of your comment is no surprise.
The reason why I was confused was that I was trying to visualise what happens behinds the scenes on the client, which is not necessarily in an EJB container at all.
Presumably the stub is just some invisible java class or classes that come into action when my client calls up the JNDI reference, creates a home instance and goes create(). To boil it down into one sentence.

[Leena Diwan]

The RMI related coding, you do have to do it by yourself when working with EJB. But it is good to know what is happening behind the scenes and what the container and architecture is doing for you.
Which book are you reading? maybe the gurus can suggest you a better source!
Thanks and Regards,
Leena

[Leena Diwan]

Sorry!!
The RMI related coding, you NOT do have to do it by yourself when working with EJB.
Leena

[JeanLouis Marechaux]

Hi all,
I suggest Mastering EJBs I or II.
As far as I remember, there's a chapter dedicated to RMI. So it explains the stub & skeleton stuffs.
Basically, you can see the stub as a proxy the client uses for remote invocations.
The stub accepts the remote calls and delegates them over the network.
The skeleton receives the remote calls from the stub, and delegates then to the remote object.
So , while the stub is a client side object, the skeleton is a remote side one.
They are the tie between the client and the remote object.
HTH

[Adam Hardy]

ironically that is exactly the book that I am reading and those are the chapters that prompted me to ask this question! :roll: (is that the irony smiley?)

[sandy gupta]

A stub is nothing but a reference to a Java Class which does the marshalling of the parameters for you.
When u look up a JNDI Tree, what you get in return is the reference of the Home Interface, which u use to create the remote interface reference and based on that u make method calls. These method calls are delegated to the Stub which basically makes sure that the parameters of the method are in the wire transferable form. After doing that, the skeleton is invoked which is nothing but an Unmarshaller of the parameters and hence u get u'r original parameters(U are in the server side now). This request is then delegated to teh original object which processes it and then returns the return value to the skeleton-> stub-> caller.
Makes Sense

[Adam Hardy]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes total sense.

[JeanLouis Marechaux]

Adam,
I took a loot at my library yesterday eve and there's another book where the RMI stuffs are describes (stub, skeleton, (un-)marshalling, ..)
Try this one from Wrox

[vishwas bansal]

according to my understanding ,
In EJB we have Ejbhome,EjbObject,EjbBean.We also have stubs and skeletons for EJBhome and EjbObject both lets traverse through Client code:
1) context.lookuphome()
This step will actually looks up for EJBHome and returns the caller EJBHome Stub.
Think of stubs as some network aware code which actually opening socket on Server where EJBHome SKeleton is listening for EJBHome Stub's request.
2) EJBHome.create()
This method is actually called on EJBHome STUB which we received after step 1.The call is send to EJBHomeSkeleton(more of RMI mechanism)
3) EJBObject <= after receiving it from step 2
The Call from EJBHome Skeleton is forwarded to already created EJBObject Skeleton which first instantiate the EJBBean ,keeps the reference in EJBObject skeleton and then EJBSkeleton returns the network aware EJBObject Stub.Which from
now onwards will be referred as our remote interface object in Client code.
4) So from now on whatever remote method we call on remote interface (EJBObject Stub received) will remotely Call those method on EJBObject skeleton, and in turn EJBObject skeleton will call our Bean's method.
Hope this would help..as I said according to my understanding.Though oreilley and Ed-roman would be better to refer.