EJB Client classes

Question

Hi All,
I wrote a simple EJB which just replies "Hello,World" string to the client when the method is called. The client creates an initial context and then obtains the home , then creates remote object and then queries the session bean. All is well here.
When I try to execute the client without having the EJB remote interface and the home interface in it's class path, it doesn't execute. I believe these required classes should be downloaded from the application server as and when required, right? Or is it mandatory that I should include these class files in the client classpath as well?
Any light on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Kalyan.

Answer 1

Danny,
For a class to resolve another class it's using (in fact, it should be "for a class loader to resolve a class"), it need not use just CLASSPATH. Classpath is a concept of the boostrap classloader, app classloader, etc. which only looks up classes in the classpath. Something like URLClassloader can lookup classes anywhere, provided you give the appropriate URL.
So, I can potentially set the context class loader to be the URLClassLoader with the appropriate URL and then load the classes from that URL and get my app working, even when the classpath doesn't have these classes.
Thanks,
Kalyan.