Using EAR Level Libraries with 10.1.3.1

In the classloading area, we've quietly added a new feature I think is pretty handy.

For a long while now, adding a library at the EAR file level, which is available to all the modules within the application has required the provision of a proprietary deployment descriptor.

To do it, you put the library into the EAR file, then declare it as a library by using an orion-application.xml file.

/EAR
/META-INF
  orion-application.xml
  application.xml
commonstuff.jar
webmodule.war
ejbmodule.jar

And in the orion-application.xml you'd have to put:

<orion-application>
<library path="commonstuff.jar"/>
...
</orion-application>

OK, it's not so much of a demanding task that its going to throw development schedules way out of kilter, but its just one of the little things you'd like to try and make a bit easier.

Well in 10.1.3.1 we have. The JEE5 specification calls for support for the inclusion of EAR level libraries. So we basically implement that with 10.1.3.1.

Given the example situation above, you can make commonstuff.jar automatically available to all the modules by simply putting it in a root level /lib directory of the EAR file and setting the version in the application.xml file to be "5".

<application version="5">
<module>
  <ejb>ejb.modulejar</ejb>
</module>
</application>

If you want to use another directory name (instead of lib) then that can be specified using the <library-directory> tag.

<application version="5">
<library-directory>libraries</library-directory>
<module>
  <ejb>ejb.modulejar</ejb>
</module>
</application>

In which case, the container will look for a /libraries directory inside of the EAR file for code sources to make available to the application.

It's not a massive feature change, but a nice little subtle one that helps to simplify the development and deployment cycle by removing the need to provide an orion-application.xml file with an application to share common libraries within the application itself.