JDeveloper 10.1.3.1 Released

No updates in a long time... It's been busy times... Anyway, this is probably well known by now, but I add it for reference:

The new JDeveloper 10.1.3.1.0 (Build 3984) is available from OTN:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/jdev/htdocs/soft10131.html

Hierarchical Questions Using TopLink

A colleague asked about how one can implement hierarchical questions using TopLink. There is a section in the manual describing this nicely.

The URL to the section is:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/toplink/doc/1013/MAIN/_html/qryadv008.htm#i1134801

The following code snippet is an excerpt from it:

ReadAllQuery raq = new ReadAllQuery(Employee.class);
Expression startExpr = expressionBuilder.get("id").equal(new Integer(1));
Expression connectBy = expressionBuilder.get("managedEmployees");
Vector order = new Vector();
order.addElement(expressionBuilder.get("lastName"));
order.addElement(expressionBuilder.get("firstName"));
raq.setHierarchicalQueryClause(startExpr, connectBy, order);
Vector employees = uow.executeQuery(raq);

this will generate the following SQL:

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE START WITH ID=1 CONNECT BY PRIOR ID=MANAGER_ID ORDER SIBLINGS BY LAST_NAME, FIRST_NAME

JDeveloper 10.1.3 ServiceUpdate 5 Available

A new Service Update for JDeveloper 10.1.3 is available via "Check for Updates".

Please note that this is not applicable for the JDeveloper 10.1.3.1 Developer Preview.

This is the fifth Service Update (SU5) for JDeveloper 10.1.3.0.4. It fixes some commonly-encountered critical issues. We recommend that all customers apply this Service Update. This Service Update requires that Service Update 1 has been installed. Please ensure that JDeveloper Service Update 1 is already installed before installing Service Update 5.

Keep the 'home' Instance Clean

We sometimes sees people deploying applications to the default 'home' OC4J instance within the Oracle Application Server. Even though this will work, it is a better practice not deploying any Applications to this Instance, and leave this one alone. We have some internal use of this instance, and it is not ment for regular Application deployments. Therefore; please create a new OC4J instance and use this for your own Application deplyoments.

RuleAuthor Fails to Start with Strange Error Message

An interesting problem that has appeared recentley is that I've seen the RuleAuthor fail with an exception:

java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not find RuleHome.uix.uix

on a few occasions recently. It is possible to get to the login screen, but once you have logged in, this error appears.

It turned out; that this was caused by that the Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) was started by using apachectl instead of via OPMN. This led to inconsistency between the OHS to OC4J mapping in the mod_oc4j mappings. Could be worth keeping in mind...

Developer's Preview of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.1.0) for the Oracle SOA Suite Out Now

A Developer's Preview of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.1.0) Developer Preview for the Oracle SOA Suite is now out on OTN.

It is available for download at: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/ias/soapreview.html

Developer's Preview of Oracle JDeveloper 10g 10.1.3.1 Out Now

A Developer's Preview of Oracle JDeveloper 10g (10.1.3.1.0) is now out on OTN.

It is available for download at: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/jdev/htdocs/soft10131studio.html

How do to Make JDeveloper Keep the Wrapper Code for EJB's for Debugging Purpose

Sometimes it is useful to have the wrapper code for EJB's for debugging. This code is not generated by default, but you can have JDeveloper generate it for you.

The wrappers are not generated during compilation, but during deployment. The easiest way to get hold of them is to run the EJB in the embedded OC4J server, this will cause a deployment to take place, and the wrappers will be generated.

You also need to set a switch for them to be generated. To do this you go to Project Properties -> Runner, and add the following switches:

-DKeepWrapperCode=true -DWrapperCodeDir=d:\tmp

and the wrapper code will be generated into whatever directory you specified with the -DWrapperCodeDir switch.

Incremental Deployment using JDeveloper & OC4J

In the JDeveloper online help and in the OC4J Deployment Guide 10.1.3, the option to use virtual directories is mentioned. This feature can be used to implement incremental deployment using JDeveloper & OC4J.

Here is how it works:
The element 'virtual-directory' adds a virtual directory mapping for static content. This is conceptually similar to symbolic links on a UNIX system. The virtual directory enables you to make files in the "real" document root directory available to the application, even though the files do not physically reside in the Web application WAR file.


Here is an example:

1. Start JDeveloper & a standalone OC4J Server (10.1.3 versions).
2. Create a new Workspace in JDeveloper, with 2 empty projects.
3. In Project 1, create a new HTML page.
4. Create a new WAR deployment profile for Project 1, set the J2EE Context to 'foo'.
5. Deploy the application to the standalone OC4J server.
6. Ensure that you can access the HTML file from a browser.
7. In Project 2, create a new JSP file.
8. Add the deployment descriptor orion-web.xml to Project 2. Add this line to that file:

<virtual-directory virtual-path="/foo" real-path="D:\oracle\oc4j1013\j2ee\home\applications\webapp1\webapp1" />

You need, of course, to alter the real-path to where your first application has been deployed. You could also have placed the files directly somewhere on the server, and referenced this directory here instead of creating a Project and deploying them.

9. Create a new WAR deployment profile in Project 2, set the J2EE Context to 'fuu'.
10. Deploy the application to the standalone OC4J server.
11. Ensure that you can access the JSP file from a browser.
12. Now you will be able to access the HTML file by using:

http://localhost:8888/fuu/foo/untitled1.html

13. Alter the JSP in Project 2 and re-deploy Project 2. Notice that you can still access the HTML file from the above URL without having to re-deploy also these files.

JDeveloper 10.1.3 SU4 Available

The Service Update 4 (SU4) for JDeveloper 10.1.3 is available. Use 'Help' -> 'Check for Updates' from within JDeveloper to download and install it.