Programming Tutorials

Home (EJBHome) Interface

The EJBHome object provides the lifecycle operations (create(), remove(), find()) for an EJB. The container's deployment tools generate the class for the EJBHome object. The EJBHome object implements the EJB's home interface. The client references an EJBHome object to perform lifecycle operations on an EJBObject interface. The Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) is used by the client to locate an EJBHome object.

The EJBHome interface provides access to the bean"s lifecycle services and can be utilized by a client to create or destroy bean instances. For entity beans, it provides finder methods that allow a client to locate an existing bean instance and retrieve it from its persistent data store.

Remote (EJBObject) Interface

The remote (EJBObject) interface provides access to the business methods within the EJB. An EJBObject represents a client view of the EJB. The EJBObject exposes all of the application-related interfaces for the object, but not the interfaces that allow the EJB container to manage and control the object. The EJBObject wrapper allows the EJB container to intercept all operations made on the EJB. Each time a client invokes a method on the EJBObject, the request goes through the EJB container before being delegated to the EJB. The EJB container implements state management, transaction control, security, and persistence services transparently to both the client and the EJB.

XML Deployment Descriptor

The deployment descriptor is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file provided with each module and application that describes how the parts of a J2EE application should be deployed. The deployment descriptor configures specific container options in your deployment tool of choice.

The rules associated with the EJB that govern lifecycle, transactions, security, and persistence are defined in an associated XML deployment descriptor object. These rules are defined declaratively at the time of deployment rather than programmatically at the time of development. At runtime, the EJB container automatically performs the services according to the values specified in the deployment descriptor object associated with the EJB.

Business Logic (Bean) Class

The bean class is developed by the bean developer and contains the implementation and the methods defined in the remote interface. In other words, the bean class has the basic business logic. For entity and session beans, the bean class extends either javax.ejb.SessionBean or javax.ejb.EntityBean, depending upon the type of EJB required.

Context Objects for Session and Entity

For each active EJB instance, the EJB container generates an instance context object to maintain information about the management rules and the current state of the instance. A session bean uses a SessionContext object, while an entity bean uses an EntityContext object. Both the EJB and the EJB container use the context object to coordinate transactions, security, persistence, and other system services.