Building a Simple EJB Application - A Tutorial

Introduction
In this tutorial we will create a simple session EJB and a client web
application using eclipse IDE along with Lomboz plug in and XDoclet.
This application, while simple, provides a good introduction to EJB
development and some of the Web development tools available.
Environment
J2SDK 1.4.2
http://java.sun.com/
Eclipse 3.1
http://www.eclipse.org/
JBoss 4.0.2
http://www.jboss.org/
XDoclet 1.2.3
http://xdoclet.sourceforge.net
Lomboz 3.1RC2
http://lomboz.objectweb.org/
Installation
Install JDK (in D:\j2sdk1.4.2_04)
Install JBoss (in E:\jboss-4.0.2)
Install Xdoclet (in D:\xdoclet\xdoclet-1.2.3)
Install Eclipse (in E:\Eclipse3.1)
Install Lomboz (in E:\Eclipse3.1)
Setting up
Set up the installed JRE in eclipse (Windows -> Preferences -> Java -> Installed JREs)

Set up the installed runtime for server in eclipse
(Windows -> Preferences -> Server -> Installed
Runtimes)



Set up Xdoclet in eclipse (Windows ->
Preferences -> J2EE Annotations -> XDoclet)

Set up the ejbdoclet for JBoss in eclipse (Windows ->
Preferences -> J2EE Annotations -> Xdoclet ->
ejbdoclet)

Creating a Session Bean
Open the J2EE perspective in eclipse (Windows
-> Open Perspective -> Other -> J2EE)


Create a new EJB Project from the Project
Explorer (EJB Projects -> New -> EJB Project)

Enter name as "SimpleEJBTutorial" and select
project location as "E:\Test".


Now create a new Session Bean from the Project
Explorer (EJB Projects -> Simple EJB Tutorial ->
ejbmodule -> New -> Other)







Note:
XDoclet is an extended Javadoc Doclet engine. It's a
generic Java template engine that lets us create
custom Javadoc @tags and based on those @tags
generate source code or other files (such as
deployment descriptors in xml form). XDoclet
supports a set of common standard tasks such as
web.xml or ejb-jar.xml generation. It uses special
JavaDoc @tags to define settings for each
component. For example, putting a @ejb.bean
name="Hello" jndi-name="Hello" type="Stateless" in
HelloBean.java
We have to edit only the HelloBean.java. All others
are automatically generated and XDoclet will
regenerate them each time we make a change to the
HelloBean class.
Edit the HelloBean class and change the foo method
to
public String sayHello(String param) {
return "Hello..";
}
The XDoclet builder will start working again and
update our classes. At the end our projects will look
like:

The highlighted classes HelloBean.java and
HelloSession.java are server side classes and
Hello.java and HelloHome.java are public interfaces.
These are the classes that will be needed by all
clients.
Deploying the Session Bean
Open the Servers view (Windows -> Show View ->
Servers)

Create a new server by right-
clicking inside the "Servers" view.



Choose SimpleEJBTutorial from the available
projects.
Ensure that the option "Automatically publish when
starting server" is checked.


Look for console messages such as:
22:02:13,274 INFO [EjbModule] Deploying Hello
22:02:13,556 INFO [EJBDeployer] Deployed: file:/E:/jboss-
4.0.2/server/default/deploy/SimpleEJBTutorial.jar

Now the EJB has been defined and deployed. It is ready to be used. We
can now build a client to make the HelloBean say Hello.
Creating a Web client Application
Create a new Dynamic Web Project namely ?HelloWeb? from the Project
Explorer (Dynamic Web Projects -> New -> Dynamic Web Project)


We will need to access the EJB interface types such as
Hello and HelloHome in client applications.
These classes are required to be added in the build path.

In the Project Explorer, right click on the HelloWeb
dynamic web project and Choose Properties...

In the Java buildpath, add the SimpleEJBTutorial project
to the project references. This will help allows us to
compile against the latest ejb client classes in this web
project.

Create a new "test.jsp" under the HelloWeb\WebContent
directory.



Open test.jsp in the JSP source page editor.
Add the following lines in the "body" of test.jsp
<%
com.tutorial.Hello hello = null;
try{
com.tutorial.HelloHome home = com.tutorial.HelloUtil.getHome();
hello = home.create();
}catch(Exception exception)
{
}
%>
<b><%= hello.sayHello(" my friend !") %></b>

Save the test.jsp. Our web application is now
complete.
Deploying and running the Web client Application
Right click on test.jsp and select Run As -> Run on
Server...

Look for something like: [TomcatDeployer] deploy,
ctxPath=/HelloWeb, warUrl=file:/E:/jboss-
4.0.2/server/default/tmp/deploy/tmp52097HelloWeb-exp.war/ on
the console.

Same application can be invoked from browser using the url,
http://localhost:8080/HelloWeb/test.jsp

Experiment adding more methods and ejbs.
Conclusion
In this tutorial we learned how to configure Eclipse to work with XDoclet
and create a J2EE EJB project that has a Session Bean. We created a
client Web application. This application, while simple, provides a good
introduction to EJB development and some of the Web development
tools available.