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h1. Apache Felix iPOJO Online Manipulator

_iPOJO generally requires an additional packaging step to preapre the bundle to be managed by iPOJO. Despite this step doesn't change the class semantic, it can be a little annoying. The online manipulator avoids this offline step!_

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{info:title=1.3.0-SNAPSHOT}
This feature is only provided in iPOJO 1.3.0-SNAPSHOT, and will be available in the iPOJO 1.4. If you want to use it, just use the [iPOJO trunk|Download].
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h2.Features

iPOJO is based on a bytecode [manipulation|Dive into the iPOJO Manipulation depths]. This manipulate is {{safe}} and does not change the class semantics. Classes can still used after the manipulation without iPOJO. However this manipulation is required for iPOJO management. Generally, this manipulation occurs offline during the packaging time. The online manipulator allows to do this manipulation at install time.

The online manipulator:
* avoids offline manipulation
* supports annotations
* supports XSD schema
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This is quite useful if you don't want to add an extra packaging step, and provides the same capabilities as the "regular" way.

h2. Usage

The online-manipulator is in fact an URL Handler. So, it will process every bundle using a special URL prefix. To use it, just follows the below instructions:

* Install and Start the URL Handler *
This is a requirement. You must install and start the URL handler as well as iPOJO (core). The URL Handler is build by the online-manipulator iPOJO sub-project.
On Felix you can either use the {{start}} command from the shell of OBR:
|| Shell Command || OBR ||
|start http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/felix/org.apache.felix.ipojo/1.4.0/org.apache.felix.ipojo-1.4.0.jar \\
start http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/felix/org.apache.felix.ipojo.online.manipulator/1.4.0/org.apache.felix.ipojo.online.manipulator-1.4.0.jar|obr start "Apache Felix iPOJO URL Handler"|

* Install a bundle using the {{ipojo:}} URL prefix
Using the handler is quite easy. When you want to deploy a non-manipulated iPOJO bundle just use an url like
{code}
install ipojo:file:/.../bundle.jar
{code}

The complete URL syntax is 
{code}
install ipojo:bundle_url[!metadata_url]
{code}

When using the {{ipojo:}} prefix, the OSGi gateway delegates the loading to the url handler manipulating the bundle before its installation.


h2. Dealing with metadata
If the installed bundle contains a {{metadata.xml}} file either in its root or in the {{META-INF}} directory, the online manipulator will use it. However, you can also provide an external {{metadata.xml}} file by indicating the url of the file like in
{code}
install ipojo:bundle_url!metadata_url
{code}

If you provide such url, it will override the contained {{metadata.xml}} file.
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