EAR and long CLASSPATH at JSP compilation time

Question

          Hi all,
          we have an EAR-packaged application with over 260 jars (mainly
          EJB) that is deployed to a managed server WL6.1SP3(AIX). Then
          we hit a JSP page of this app. and Weblogic generates the
          adecuate .java file that is passed as an argument to a forked
          process for the javac compiler with a CLASSPATH that is more
          than 22KB!! of length because of the EAR classloader schema
          (it must include all the jars of the EJB level).
          The problem is that the EAR deployment in WL6.1 generates a fixed and very long
          path for every jar that it is composed of:
          $WL_HOME/./config/DOMAIN/applications/.wl_notdelete_EARNAME
          /wlap#####/ejbjarname.jar
          and the invoke of the compiler fails with argument too long.
          We can control the EJB jar name, EARNAME, WL_HOME
          and DOMAIN to shorten the CLASSPATH, but that is not enough
          giving that the fixed part of the PATH is very long, for example:
          with DOMAIN=DOM1, WL_HOME=W, ejbjar name=EJB1, EARNAME=EAR1
          you get:
          /w/./config/DOM1/applications/.wl_notdelete_EAR1/wlap#####/EJB1.jar: that is
          68 chars * 260 jars = more than 17KB only with the
          EJB part of the CLASSPATH (plus the standard SYSTEM CLASSPATH
          and WARS CLASSPATH.)
          As workarounds we can:
          1.- Use an "pseudo exploded" EAR with EJBREMOTE and EJBHOME in clientclasses path
          with every jar and war by their own. Not very
          clean and we've lost the benefits of EAR deployment.
          2.- Consolidate a bunch of EJB in every jar. More administrative
          tasks (common xml descriptors:ejb-jar.xml,...) and less isolation
          between developer teams.
          3.- Consolidate at functionality level (source) a bunch of EJB
          in a few one. :(
          4.- Precompile every JSP outside of WEBLOGIC and generate
          the corresponding class and entries at web.xml and weblogic.xml
          5.- ...?
          or maybe:
          6.- configure this very long directory of deployment
          to a shorter deployer choosen and use relative paths.
          Is this possible? :)
          PacoG.
          

Answer 1

You may try to use JSP compiler class. Please specify 'compilerclass'
          option in weblogic.xml. This option specifies name of a Java compiler
          that is executed in WebLogic Servers's virtual machine. (Used in place of
          an executable compiler such as javac or sj.)
          Please see
          http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs61/webapp/weblogic_xml.html#jsp-descriptor.
          Paco Garcia wrote:
          > oops!
          >
          > >$WL_HOME/./config/DOMAIN/applications/.wl_notdelete_EARNAME
          > >/wlap#####/ejbjarname.jar
          >
          > >with DOMAIN=DOM1, WL_HOME=W, ejbjar name=EJB1, EARNAME=EAR1
          > >you get:
          > >/w/./config/DOM1/applications/.wl_notdelete_EAR1/wlap#####/EJB1.jar:
          >
          > please read SERVERNAME instead of EARNAME
          >
          > PacoG.
          Regards,
          Ann
          Developer Relations Engineer
          BEA Support