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java:comp/env questions / doubts

 
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Hi. I have some difficulties understanding the idea of java:comp/env. I will put here down what I know (or I think I know), and maybe someone could straighten things up if I am wrong.

1. There is a global JNDI namespace, and it uses names that are vendor dependent, possibly not portable. Every EJB, JDBC pool, JMS Topic or Queue, I create for the server, has its name in the global JNDI.

2. java:comp/env is a utility context (which may not even be a real context, can be "virtual"). Every resource (for example, EJB) has its own java:comp/env context, populated with resources ejbs, and env-entries, but only those that are specified for the given resource.

3. In web containers, the resource-ref, resource-env-ref, env-entry, ejb-ref and ejb-local-ref are used in web.xml to bring the resources into the java:comp/env context. The resources are specified for all web resources when used in web.xml (as these are immediate children of the web-app element), so are present in java:comp/env for every resource.

4. In web containers, the @Resource and @EJB annotations can be specified on class level, which is a counterpart of resource-ref / resource-env-ref, env-entry, and ejb-ref / ejb-local-ref in web.xml (so it places the referenced resource into java:comp/env), the difference being that this time the resource is present only in java:comp/env of the web resource that has the annotation (in contrast to these put in web.xml).

5. In EJB container, in ejb-jar.xml, resource-ref, resource-env-ref, env-entry, ejb-ref and ejb-local-ref are specified for each bean separately, so the resources are present only in java:comp/env for that specific EJB. This is the same with @Resource and @EJB annotations - they put the resources into the context, and these are local to the bean.

6. When @Resource or @EJB is used on setter or field level, this is equivalent to two things:
a. bringing the resource into java:comp/env of the class (which is the same as using the @Resource / @EJB annotations on class level) so that I can use a JNDI lookup in the java:comp/env context (can I really do the lookup?)
b. the container does the lookup for me (injection)

I would be very grateful if someone could take time, read, and correct any of these statements.

Regards.
[ November 29, 2008: Message edited by: Raf Szczypiorski ]
 
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Raf,

What you have is absolutely accurate. Congratulations on putting this together. There is rarely any material on this, so it would be a great resource for anyone who needs it. I would urge you to write an article on it or put it on your blog or make it more generally accessible via some other means.

That being said, a little bit of personal opinion: the component context is a terrible over-engineered concept that only a hopeless academic can love :-). I wish it could be deprecated :-). That being said, I am glad EJB 3 handles most of this behind the scenes quite elegantly 90+% of the time. In the cases it cannot, I don't see using global JNDI names as being that bad. Also, we are standardizing global JNDI names in EJB 3.1.

That all being said, if you want to know a little more about the component context, do let me know.

Regards,
Reza
 
Raf Szczypiorski
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Hi. I would like to know one more thing (for now :-)) - is java:comp/env inherited? I mean, if I have a servlet, which has the @Resource annotation on a field, which is of DataSource type. I can look it up with the code:

Works fine. Then, I instantiate a helper class, and do the same lookup:

code for the helper class


and the code in the servlet:

This also works fine. I am using Glassfish - is it a feature specigic to this server, or is it standard, expected behaviour?

Thanks for you good words. As for making it public, I am shy and introvert ;-) Really, I have no blog or any way I could write an article. But if anyone reading this would like to use this, please do so.
 
Reza Rahman
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Raf,

It is expected behavior, as long as the look-up happens within the span of the invocation that defines the component context/environment.

Regards,
Reza
 
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