How Should You Develop EJB Applications?

This section describes:

Understanding the EJB Application Directory Structure
Using EJB Development Tools

Understanding the EJB Application Directory Structure

Although you can develop your application in any manner, we encourage you to use consistent naming to locate your application easily. One method would be to implement your enterprise Java application under a single parent directory structure, separating each module of the application into its own subdirectory.

Notice in Figure 2-1 that the EJB and Web modules exist under the hello application parent directory and are developed separately in their own directory.

Figure 2-1 Hello Directory Structure

Description of "Figure 2-1 Hello Directory Structure"

Note:

For EJB modules, the top of the module (ejb_module) represents the start of a search path for classes. As a result, classes belonging to packages are expected to be located in a nested directory structure beneath this point. For example, a reference to a package class myapp.Hello.class is expected to be located in ...hello/ejb_module/myapp/Hello.class.

Using EJB Development Tools

This section describes developing EJB applications:

Using JDeveloper
Using Eclipse
Using TopLink Workbench

Using JDeveloper

Oracle JDeveloper greatly simplifies J2EE application development by providing extensive automation, a built-in OC4J for rapid deployment and testing, and many other productivity enhancements. For example:

Developing session beans: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/101/viewlets/101/ejb30sessionbeanviewlet_viewlet_swf.htm
Developing entity beans: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/101/viewlets/101/ejb30entitybeanviewlet_viewlet_swf.htm

For more information on JDeveloper, see http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/index.html.

Using Eclipse

Oralce is developing extensible frameworks and exemplary tools on the Eclipse platform for the definition and editing of Object-Relational (O/R) mappings for EJB 3.0 Entities. EJB 3.0 O/R mapping support will focus on minimizing the complexity of mapping by providing creation and automated initial mapping wizards, and programming assistance such as dynamic problem identification

For more information on EJB 3.0 support in Eclipse, see http://www.eclipse.org/dali/.

Using TopLink Workbench

You can use the TopLink Workbench to create and configure:

EJB 3.0 toplink-ejb-jar.xml and ejb3-toplink-sessions.xml files
EJB 2.1 toplink-ejb-jar.xml file
ejb-jar.xml file

For more information, see:

"Understanding the TopLink Workbench" in the Oracle TopLink Developer's Guide
"Understanding EJB Deployment Descriptor Files"