Re: Deploying jar files

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

jthompson@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> ...
> I guess I should outline what I'm currently doing:
> - any RPG program that wants to use Java classes calls a procedure
> 'setClassPath' which sets the environment value CLASSPATH. This is good
> because it means the classpath is set differently for developers and all
> other users (the code within setClassPath is able to determine whethwer
> it's a development or production environment). But it's also bad because 1)
> once the JVM is started, all subsequent calls to setClassPath are
> ineffective  2) developers aren't always remembering to code the call 3)
> everytime I want to evaluate a new Java extension it means code changes and
> re-compilations.
> 

If developers know who they are, and possibly already call something to
setup the development environment, then you could have *SYS level
environment variable that sets up CLASSPATH for all-other-users, and
developers could call some startup CL program that replaces that job's
*JOB CLASSPATH envvar with the development version of the classpath.  If
the set-dev-envvar program wasn't called, the job would default to the
all-other-users envvar.  

When you need to change the classpath, you have only two places to do
it: the *SYS envvar and the program that sets the *JOB envvar.

I would stay away from calling setClassPath from every program.  It will
become less and less reliable as more of your RPG programs use Java, for
all three reasons you state.