RE: RPG, Java and Classpath practices

Brad,

Isn't this what the Extension Mechanism Architecture is for? I'm hardly a Java expert, but I believe you could simply store your jar into the <java-home>/lib/ext directory.

If this is NOT what the /ext directory is for, please tell me now, so I can fix a few things.... <g>

hth,
Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Bradley V. Stone
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:03 PM
To: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RPG, Java and Classpath practices


I am looking for ideas on the simplest and hopefully best practice for using
Java in an RPG program.

Let's assume I have an application I want to send to my clients. This
application is mostly RPG, but uses a couple Java classes contained in a
coule JAR files.

I install the JAR files in the IFS.

Now, when running my application, I have to worry about:

1. If the classpath is set right
2. If the JVM is already running, meaning I can't change the classpath even
if I wanted to

The issue here is, if IBM wanted us to implement Java in our applications, I
would hope there would be some way to use a classpath like a library list.
In other words, add to it, change it, remove from it, etc. All on the fly
without having to worry if someone else wrote an application using Java that
was run before in this job.

So, looking for ideas on handling this. In a nutshell, you have a
standalone app that uses Java inside of RPG and you want to ensure the
classpath is set properly when your application runs, no matter what else
they are running or if the JVM is already running for that job.

I have a feeling the answer to the question won't be simple from what I've
read, but maybe there's something someone has figured out. I've talked with
Aaron Bartell about this, and using data queues came up with my own Java
handler job running to process things, but that seems like a lot more work
than I want to do.

Thanks a million.

Bradley V. Stone
BVSTools - www.bvstools.com
eRPG SDK - www.erpgsdk.com