Has Oracle published the source for frmwebutil.jar? (Duncan?)

Question

After working with webutil for quite some time now, I recently discovered a problem. Before I give details, I must emphasize that I am running using the Java Plug-In (JRE 1.5.0_11) under IE 6.0, which is certified at level 3 (passes Forms functional tests) according to Oracle's Client Platform Statement of Direction. I have not tested this under JInitiator with JRE 1.3, as I have written JavaBeans that require JRE1.4 or better.
There appears to be some bad interaction between CLIENT_GET_FILE_NAME( ) and CLIENT_OLE2.CREATE_OBJ( ). Specifically, the following scenario results in JACOB error ComFailException: unable to co-create object...
1. Call CLIENT_GET_FILE_NAME( ), then close
2. Launch Excel using CLIENT_OLE2.CREATE_OBJ( ), close and dispose
3. Again, call CLIENT_GET_FILE_NAME( ), then close
4. Again, launch Excel using CLIENT_OLE2.CREATE_OBJ( )
Excel should launch correctly in step 2 -- step 4 raises ComFailException.
After a bit of research, I have concluded that Swing's (CLIENT_GET_FILE_NAME uses javax.swing.JFileChooser) threading model does not coexist happily with JACOB, at least not as it is being used in WebUtil 1.0.6.
I have implemented an ugly hack that entails modifying JACOB's Dispatch class by changing one of its constructors:
  public Dispatch(String progid) {
    createInstance(progid);
  }to
  public Dispatch(String progid) {
    ComThread.InitMTA();
    createInstance(progid);
  }I realize that my fix imposes a threading model that may not be correct under all circumstances, and I have no idea what else it might break in WebUtil, but it fixes my immediate problem. A proper fix would be implemented in Oracle's Java classes (those that support CLIENT_OLE2) -- is the source for these available?
If not, when will Oracle themselves update these classes? Jacob 1.8 is butt-ugly, from a developer's perspective, compared even to 1.9.1 (Jacob is now at 1.13-M2) -- particularly for lacking convenience methods like invokeGetComponent( ) and better handling of the Variant type.
Any input is welcome and appreciated.
Thanks,
Eric Adamson
Lansing, Michigan

Answer 1

Hi Duncan,
Thanks for such a speedy reply, and my apologies for "calling you out" -- I understand that responding to everyone who mentions your name would quickly prove cumbersome.
I've yet to open a TAR, because I wanted to first make sure that the forums couldn't offer a quicker response, hopefully explaining something simple that I'd been overlooking. A potentially important distinction, regarding the scenario I'm describing, is that I'm trying to launch an application, create a document, populate it and hand it off to the user, rather than solely automate it and close upon finishing. In this circumstance, it's unclear to me, whether I should be calling CLIENT_OLE2.RELEASE_OBJ(myApp), as doing so with Jacob 1.8 closes the entire app, rather than leaving this up to the user. This does not appear to be the case, when using Jacob 1.9, but I suspect that this is only because with v1.9 Dispatch.release( ) becomes private, and safeRelease( ) becomes the public method, which I suspect breaks CLIENT_OLE2.RELEASE_OBJ( ) altogether.
Given that this evidently appears TAR-worthy to you, I'll check Metalink for duplicate issues, and if none are reported, I'll open a TAR ASAP and tack it onto this thread. Thanks again, for your quick response.
Regards,
Eric Adamson
Lansing, Michigan