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• openejb-3.0-src.zip (pgp, md5)
• openejb-3.0-src.tar.gz (pgp, md5)

Tested On

Change Summary

OpenEJB 3.0 Final includes several improvements and refinements over the very successful 3.0 beta 2 release. Dependency injection got a major boost with support for Java Generics and Enums. A dozen new validations makes it even harder to do something "wrong". JPA users will find it nearly impossible to misconfigure the jta-data-source and non-jta-data-source. More robust EJB references allow for circular and lazy references to ejbs in other ears. Deep levels of annotation inheritance are completely respected allowing for greater design control and less duplicate code.

Features

EJB 3.0

OpenEJB 3.0 supports the EJB 3.0 specification as well as the prior EJB 2.1, EJB 2.0, and EJB 1.1. New features in EJB 3.0 include:

• Annotations instead of xml
• No home interfaces
• Business Interfaces
• Dependency Injection

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• Interceptors
• Java Persistence API
• Service Locator (ala SessionContext.lookup)
• POJO-style beans
• JAX-WS Web Services

EJB 2.x features since OpenEJB 1.0 also include:

• MessageDriven Beans
• Container-Managed Persistence (CMP) 2.0
• Timers

The two aspects of EJB that OpenEJB does not yet support are:

• JAX-RPC
• CORBA

CORBA support will be added in future releases. Support for the JAX-RPC API is not a planned feature.

Embeddable for Testing and Java SE usage

Over the years, OpenEJB has innovated the art of the embedded/Java SE EJB container usable as a plain library much the way an embedded databases work. In a simple 1, 2, 3 step of 1) add OpenEJB to your classpath, 2) add a META-INF/ejb-jar.xml containing at minimum "<ejb-jar/>", then 3) use the org.apache.openejb.client.LocalInitialContextFactory when creating your client InitialContext, you've got a Java SE EJB container that can be used in unit tests, your IDE, or anyway you'd like to drop in EJB functionality. Configuration can be done through an openejb.xml file or can be encapsulated 100% in the test case through the parameters passed to the InitialContext. For example, to create a JTA DataSource for JPA usage, you can simply:

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See the examples zip for a dozen embedded testing examples that range from simple @Stateless beans to advanced transaction and security testing.

EJB Plugin for Tomcat 6 and 5.5

OpenEJB 3.0 can be plugged into any Tomcat 6 or Tomcat 5.5 server, adding support for EJBs in Web Apps. War files themselves can contain EJBs and the Servlets can use new JavaEE 5 annotations, XA transactions, JPA, and JMS. Webapps can even support fat java clients connecting over HTTP.

Don't use EJBs?

No matter, adding OpenEJB to Tomcat gives Servlets several new Java EE 5 capabilities such as JPA, JAX-WS, JMS, J2EE Connectors, transactions, and more as well as enhancing the injection features of Tomcat 6 to now support injection of JavaEE objects like Topics, Queues, EntityManagers, JMS ConnectionFactories, JavaMail Sessions, as well as simpler data types such as Dates, Classes, URI, URL, List, Map, Set, Properties, and more. In the case of Tomcat 5.5 which doesn't support dependency injection at all, even more is gained.

Collapsed EAR (EJBs in .WARs)

Along the lines of the Tomcat integration where OpenEJB can be plugged into Tomcat, we've expanded the idea to also allow your EJBs to be plugged into your webapp. We call this innovative feature Collapsed EAR. In this style 100% of your classes, including your EJBs, can be packed into your WEB-INF/classes and WEB-INF/lib directories. The result is that your WAR file becomes a replacement for an EAR. Unlike an EAR, all multi-packaging and multi-classloader requirements are stripped away and collapsed down to one archive and one classloader all your components, EJBs or otherwise, can share.

Runs on OSGi

All OpenEJB 3.0 binaries come with complete OSGi metadata and are usable as a bundle in any OSGi platform. Look for OpenEJB in the upcoming, OSGi-based ServiceMix 4 which is built on Apache Felix.

CMP via JPA

Our CMP implementation is a thin layer over the new Java Persistence API (JPA). This means when you deploy an old style CMP 1.1 or CMP 2.1 bean it is internally converted and ran as a JPA bean. This makes it possible to use both CMP and JPA in the same application without any coherence issues that can come from using two competing persistence technologies against the same data. Everything is ultimately JPA in the end.

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Dependency Injection – Enums, Classes, Dates, Files, oh my.

Dependency Injection in EJB 3.0 via @Resource is largely limited to objects provided by the container, such as DataSources, JMS Topics and Queues. It is possible for you to supply your own configuration information for injection, but standard rules allow for only data of type String, Character, Boolean, Integer, Short, Long, Double, Float and Byte. If you needed a URL, for example, you'd have to have it injected as a String then convert it yourself to a URL. This is just plain silly as the conversion of Strings to other basic data types has existed in JavaBeans long before Enterprise JavaBeans existed.

OpenEJB 3.0 supports injection of any data type for which you can supply a JavaBeans PropertyEditor. We include several built-in PropertyEditors already such as Date, InetAddress, Class, File, URL, URI, Map, List, any java.lang.Enum and more.

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Dependency Injection – Generic Collections and Maps

Support for Java Generics makes the dependency injection that much more powerful. Declare an injectable field that leverages Java Generics and we will use that information to boost your injection to the next level. For example:

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Dependency Injection – Custom Types

You can easily add your own types or override the way built-in types are handled and claim dependency injection as your own making it a critical part of your architecture. For example, let's register a custom editor for our Pickup enum.

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The META-INF/env-entries.properties

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To fix this, OpenEJB supports the idea of a META-INF/env-entries.properties file where we will look for the value of things that need injection that are not container controlled resources (i.e. datasources and things of that nature). You can configure you ejbs via a properties file and skip the need for an ejb-jar.xml and it's 5 lines per property madness.

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Support for GlassFish descriptors

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JavaEE 5 EAR and Application Client support

JavaEE 5 EARs, RARs, and Application Clients can be deployed in addition to ejb jars. EAR support is limited to ejbs, application clients, RARs, and libraries; WAR files and RAR files will be ignored unless embedded in Tomcat. Per the JavaEE 5 spec, the META-INF/application.xml and META-INF/application-client.xml files are optional.

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Validation output comes in three levels. The most verbose level will tell you in detail what you did wrong, what the options are, and what to do next... even including valid code and annotation usage tailored to your app that you can copy and paste into your application. Very ideal for beginners and people using OpenEJB in a classroom setting.

Some example output might look like the following. Here we illegally add some annotations to the "Movies" bean's interface as well as use the wrong annotations for various types of injection:

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JNDI Name Formatting

A complication when using EJB is that plain client applications are at the mercy of vendor's chosen methodology for how JNDI names should be constructed. OpenEJB breaks the mold by allowing you to specify the exact format you'd like OpenEJB to use for your server or any individual application. Supply us with a formatting string, such as "ejb/{ejbName}/{interfaceClass.simpleName}", to get a JNDI layout that best matches your needs.

Changelog

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