Class Loader Hierarchy in Weblogic 7.0

Question

I have read the BEA documentation on the class loader hierarchy in Weblogic Server,
and I have some questions regarding some behavior I am seeing.
I am running Weblogic Server 7.0.
I have an ear file that contains 3 web apps (wars) and several utility jars. The
web apps' manifests contain the Class-Path entry for the utility jars. My understanding
of this is that each web app SHOULD have its own class loader. Also, the utility
jars will be scoped in a separate class loader and WILL NOT have visibility to
the web app classes. The web app classes should have visibility to the utility
jars.
Is this correct????
I added a static segment of code in each web app and printed the class loader
for each servlet when it was loaded. I also printed the class loader from a class
that is DEFINITELY contained in one of the utility jars. Here is the result:
Utility Class ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04 Utility Class
Parent ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader@71732b
Servlet 1 ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04 Servlet 1 Parent
ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader@71732b
Servlet 2 ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04 Servlet 2 Parent
ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader@71732b
I'm a little confused.... I expected to see 3 different class loaders (i.e. one
for each class above). I believe the above printout says that all 3 classes are
being loaded by the SAME class loader instance (Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04).
Am I interpreting this correctly? If so, what's going on?

Answer 1

I rechecked the classpath for the user that starts Weblogic, and in the classpath
I found the project "src" directory (must have missed it earlier). When we did
our build, the classes are placed in the src structure then copied to the build
area. That's the reason I was not seeing the appropriate class loader hierarchy.
Thanks for all of the comments.
"Sanjeev Chopra" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
"Mark Cotherman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Thanks for your comments again Mark. I'm just trying to get a goodhandle
on how
this is working.
I'll assume that somehow my web app classes are being loaded into theroot
classloader.
The next question is... why??Just to be sure - is there any way these classes are sneaking into the
system classpath ?
My ear file contains the following:
a.war
b.war
c.war
lib/util1.jar
lib/util2.jar
lib/util3.jar
lib/util4.jar
The manifest in all three wars reference all util jars. This ear deployssuccessfully
on Weblogic with no errors.
How could these separate servlets (one in each war) not have seperateclass loaders
seperate from the root where the utils should reside. I don't thinkthat
I have
any control over where Weblogic loads the war classes, or do I?
See comments below....
Mark Spotswood <[email protected]> wrote:
Mark Cotherman wrote:
Thanks for the follow-up.
I want to make sure I follow what you are saying. All classes in
the
manifest
Class-Path of WARs are exported to the parent classloader.That's right.
To me this is the correct behavior since the manifest Class-Path
is
meant to provide
a way to share common utility classes among several web apps. AllEJB jars and
manifest Class-Path entries should be loaded by the same class loader.Its a way to share class definitions, but not necessarilly class
instances. I don't think that a web application should be extending
the classpath of its parent's classloader. This leads to namespace
problems as well as reloadability issues.
Ok, you lost me here. Shouldn't delegation handle the namespacecollisions??
If the web app class loader has a class definition (webapp:com.xyz.ClassA) with
exactly the same name in the same package as the root class loader(rootloader:
com.xyz.ClassA), I thought the web app would use (delegate loading)the
class
definition from the root class loader when PreferWebInf is set to false.
Isn't this why the PreferWebInf attribute, when set to true, can causeClassCastExceptions??
The web app when creating an instance of (webapp: com.xyz.ClassA)from
the web
app class loader can potentially pass a reference to this instanceto a
class
instance loaded from the root loader. The root class loader has adifferent class
definition for ClassA.
REALLY what makes since is that all common jar files be defined
in
the manifest
Class-Path OF THE ear FILE (if the WAR(s) are in an ear). These
jar
files should
then be loaded by the same class loader as the EJB jars. There shouldbe no need
for the WARs to have any reference to the utility jars since the
EJB
class loader
is the parent of the WAR class loaders.The ear file doesn't have a manifest classpath, but what you are getting
at makes sense. If you add a manifest to any EJBs in your app, theall
webapps (as well as all other EJBs) will be able to see it, sincewith
our structure, EJBs are loaded into the application's root classloader.
My problem is that the ACTUAL SERVLET classes are NOT being loadedby a separate
class loader from the EJB and common jar class loader. This is
completely
against
what is being said in the Weblogic documentation. The Manifest
Class-Path
should
have nothing to do with where the classes that reside in
WEB-INF/classes
of my
servlet are loaded.Classloaders will ask their parent for the class first before loading
it
themselves. So if the parent classloader somehow has visibility to
classes that your webpapp references, then it will get loaded by the
parent classloader.
I am in the middle of migrating an app from an older version of
Weblogic,
and
it would be helpful to have the ACTUAL class loading hierarchy welldocumented.
The basic hierarchy is all EJBs are in a root shared classloader and
each web application is loaded by a classloader that is a child of
that root.
Again, am I missing something here???My suspicion is that somehow these servlets are in the classpath ofthe
root classloader, so when the webapp classloaders delegate to thatone,
it will come up with the class.
mark
Mark Spotswood <[email protected]> wrote:
I believe what you are seeing is a bug in the servlet container.
The classloader organization is what you expect, but each webapp
is exporting the classpath information from its manifest to the
classloader above its classloader (which is common to all
three webapps) rather than to its own classloader. So because
of the delegation that happens with classloading, the common
parent classloader is the one that loads the class.
I believe that this behavior exists as an attempt to avoid
ClassCastExceptions, but I don't think that it is the right
solution to this problem. In our 8.1 release, this behavior
has been changed. That is, web applications no longer export
manifest classpath information to the parent of their classloader.
This change has not been ported back to the 7.x line, but a bug
report has been created (CR099889). You should be able to follow
up with support with this CR number.
mark
Mark Cotherman wrote:
I have read the BEA documentation on the class loader hierarchy
in
Weblogic Server,
and I have some questions regarding some behavior I am seeing.
I am running Weblogic Server 7.0.
I have an ear file that contains 3 web apps (wars) and several
utility
jars. The
web apps' manifests contain the Class-Path entry for the utility
jars.
My understanding
of this is that each web app SHOULD have its own class loader.
Also,
the utility
jars will be scoped in a separate class loader and WILL NOT have
visibility
to
the web app classes. The web app classes should have visibility
to
the utility
jars.
Is this correct????
I added a static segment of code in each web app and printed the
class
loader
for each servlet when it was loaded. I also printed the class loaderfrom a class
that is DEFINITELY contained in one of the utility jars. Here is
the
result:
Utility Class ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04
Utility
Class
Parent ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader@71732b
Servlet 1 ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04 Servlet1 Parent
ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader@71732b
Servlet 2 ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04 Servlet2 Parent
ClassLoader: sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader@71732b
I'm a little confused.... I expected to see 3 different class loaders(i.e. one
for each class above). I believe the above printout says that all
3
classes are
being loaded by the SAME class loader instance
(Launcher$AppClassLoader@b9d04).
Am I interpreting this correctly? If so, what's going on?