Issues with deploying BC4J/JSP applications on OC4J

Question

To everyone who's been having problems deploying BC4J/JSP applications to OC4J.
We are aware that you're having problems deploying to OC4J, and we're working on them. OC4J was not available in time for us to add support for OC4J deployment to the JDeveloper 3.2.3 release. In addition there are some bugs in the first release of OC4J that have an impact on BC4J applications. This note describes the issues, and how we plan to address them.
Issue 1: Classpath problems
People have been getting "class not found" or "properties file not found" errors when they try to run their JSP. The answer is to make sure that all relevant archives and your JSP's .properties file are in the OC4J classpath - there's a note addressing the .properties file problem at http://technet.oracle.com:89/ubb/Forum99/HTML/000028.html. In general though, setting up the classpath can be tricky.
Issue 2: JSP TAG NOT RELEASED ON END TAG. SAME TAG IS REUSED.
This issue affects JSP pages whose behaviour relies on a tag instance being cleaned up as a result of release() being called.
Your tag will not be released, and subsequent instances of the tag will reuse the first instance, rather than instantiating a new
one.
Issue 3:JSP SCRIPTABLE VARIABLE NULL
A scriptable variable set in a tag cannot be accessed by a scriptlet. For example, this JSP code will throw a
NullPointerException, because the scriptlet cannot access the value of resultRow:
<jbo:Row id="resultRow" action="CURRENT" datasource="customer_vo1" />
<%
session.putValue("FIRSTNAME", resultRow.getAttribute("Firstname").toString());
%>Workaround: Add a line of code at the beginning of the scriptlet to explicitly get the variable's value from the page context, for
example:
<jbo:Row id="resultRow" action="CURRENT" datasource="customer_vo1" />
<%
resultRow = (oracle.jbo.Row)pageContext.findAttribute("resultRow");
session.putValue("FIRSTNAME", resultRow.getAttribute("Firstname").toString());
%>
What we plan to do
To address issue 1, we're currently testing a utility that installs the BC4J runtime libraries to OC4J, and provides a script to start OC4J with the correct classpath. We plan to post this by the end of this week, along with instructions for deploying a BC4J application to OC4J; deployment will be a lot simpler after running the utility.
To address issues 2 and 3, we're working on a second utility that installs BC4J runtime and provides a fix to the JSP compiler. We plan to post this second utility by the end of next week.
We do apologise for the problems you're having; please bear with us as we work on making it easier for you to deploy BC4J applications to OC4J.
Thanks
Blaise

Answer 1

Hi, I have been trying desparately to deploy
a simple example JDeveloper application for months and months.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN DEPLOYING ANYTHING.
I don't know much about webservers and I am relying
on the instructions from JDeveloper help and this website.
I have already tried Apache, and WebLogic
because there are instructions in the JDev help.
No luck.
Now I am trying to use OC4J on 9ias because there are instructions.
I have read the instructions about how to install a BC4J
app on OC4J about 25 times, but I can't get this thing to work.
It works fine inside of JDeveloper.
I create a BC4J project using the scott
schema (just the dept and emp tables).
Then I create an empty project for my JSP client.
I choose JSP Application from the web
objects and it connects to my BC4J project.
As I say, when I run it in JDeveloper, there is no problem.
In the instructions for installing BC4J
in OC4J, it first says install JDev 3.2.3 and OC4J.
This is done, and it tested fine.
Then it says to install the deployment software.
No problem.
But when I deploy the app according to the instructions,
it just hangs (like Rick Wang's program did).
The main.jsp page loads and displays correctly,
but when I click on the links to the DeptView.jsp
or EmpView.jsp it just hangs.
Here is the entire batch file I'm using
to start OC4J: cd c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\default-web-app\lib
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\classes
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\classes12.jar
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\xmlparserv2.jar
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jdev-rt.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jbojdbcpatch.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\connectionmanager.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jbohtml.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jboimdomains.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\ordim817.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\ordvir817.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\ordhttp.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jbomt.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jbodomorcl.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jboremote.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jndi.jar
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\jbodatum12.zip
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib\al_BC4J.jar
java -cp C:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\orion.jar;%CLASSPATH%
com.evermind.server.ApplicationServer
pause
The file al_BC4J.jar contains my application.properties file
and my connections.properties file, as well as my business components.
All of the files referenced in my classpath are
present in my c:\oracle_9ias\j2ee\home\lib directory.
I noticed that Raghu's classpath contains a file called jdev.jar
So does the classpath of another fellow who says
he was successful in deployment (his name is Jeffrey Jackson).
I searched my JDev_3.2.3 for this file and found it nowhere.
I also searched my OC4J home and my 9iAS for this file and
found it nowhere.
It is nowhere on my C:\.
Is this file necessary?
I will also try removing my application.properties file
and my connections.properties file from my BC4J .jar file
and put them in a separate .jar file at the root level (as Raghu did).
However, Jeffery Jackson did not do this and says he was
successfull in deployment.
***DO I NEED TO JAR UP ANY OF MY THE FILES FROM the JSP
FOLDER IN JDevHome\myhtml???***
***or place them in the classpath?***
I have read over all of the discussions at: http://technet.oracle.com:89/ubb/Forum2/HTML/008232.html
and http://technet.oracle.com:89/ubb/Forum99/HTML/000028.html
many, many times.
Can anyone help me?