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Posted to dev@tomcat.apache.org by Remy Maucherat <re...@apache.org> on 2003/04/17 10:39:43 UTC

[5.0] Deployer (new client feature)

The goal would be to provide a useful tool for people using Tomcat 5 in 
production environments. Using the tool will not be required to deploy a 
web application in Tomcat 5 (ie, all the necessary environment to 
compile JSPs, the old Jasper runtime, server side XML validation when 
enabled, will remain present or still be useable through some 
configuration in the case of XML validation).

The deployer will consist in a set of JARs, one Ant script, some shell 
scripts for convinience, and one HTML documentation page (also to be 
added to the main documentation bundle). As a side effect, the deployer 
will also better showcase the capabilities of the manager application 
and the associated Ant tasks.

Deploying a webapp through the client would do the following operations:
- clean the build directory (the "build" subdir of the deployer)
- copy the to-be-deployed webapp to the build directory
- compile JSPs to /WEB-INF/src
- compile generated servlets to /WEB-INF/classes
- generate mappings for those servlets, and automatically insert the 
mappings inside the existing web.xml (using DOM, a feature to be added 
to JSPC)
- as a convinience feature, compile .java sources present in 
/WEB-INF/classes
- (optional) remove /WEB-INF/src folder
- (optional) remove *.java from /WEB-INF/classes
- (optional) remove *.jsp from the webapp folders (for security reasons)
- do a XML schema validation of the webapp's web.xml
- create a WAR archive of the resulting webapp
- (optional) use the deploy task to deploy to the Tomcat server

The optional parts will be of course controlled using properties (either 
specified in a properties file or on the command line).

The deployer will not be ready in Tomcat 5.0.2 (unless people think it's 
a very important new feature, and would like it to be included). In 
5.0.3, it will be distributed as a separate download.

Comments ?

Remy


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Re: [5.0] Deployer (new client feature)

Posted by Costin Manolache <cm...@yahoo.com>.
Remy Maucherat wrote:

> Jean-Francois Arcand wrote:
>>> The deployer will not be ready in Tomcat 5.0.2 (unless people think
>>> it's a very important new feature, and would like it to be included).
>>> In 5.0.3, it will be distributed as a separate download.
>>>
>>> Comments ?
>> 
>> Very interesting.
>> 
>> One suggestion: I'm realy not an expert with Xdoclet, but  we may want
>> re-use some of their work or try to have a similiar functionality (not
>> for 5.0.3 of course). Being able to deploy a Servlet/Jsp without having
>> to write a web.xml file will be very helpfull and improve beginner user
>> experience. I know we already have the default web.xml, but I think
>> that's a way to explore.
> 
> XDoclet won't do anything for JSP. For servlets, you need to have some
> specific javadocs with the mappings. XDoclet would then generate the
> descriptors.

AFAIK it can generate .TLD files for taglibs - which is quite usefull.


> XDoclet is particularly useful when the descriptors are very painful to
> write (ex: EJB). I think web.xml is ok in terms of complexity, so
> learning the necessary javadocs tags is IMO a waste of time.

Not quite. The main benefit of xdoclet ( IMO ) is not that it saves you from
learning web.xml or .tld syntax, but the fact that it helps keeping them
in sync, and keeps all the information grouped next to the source.


> To summarize, first time users would be more helped by a GUI app (or
> Eclipse plugin, or whatever) to generate the web.xml, and this GUI could
> then reuse the proposed new deployer to do the last part of the job.

I think it's a combination of all. I think Xdoclet is as important for
advanced users ( who use Vi :-) - most beginners will probably just use 
taglibs and will probably develop JSP pages or simple servlets. 

BTW, the modeler descriptor is another important target for xdoclet, it
would  save us from manually updating it and make it clear in the code what
is exposed to the console, and keep the docs in sync. 


Costin




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Re: [5.0] Deployer (new client feature)

Posted by Remy Maucherat <re...@apache.org>.
Jean-Francois Arcand wrote:
>> The deployer will not be ready in Tomcat 5.0.2 (unless people think 
>> it's a very important new feature, and would like it to be included). 
>> In 5.0.3, it will be distributed as a separate download.
>>
>> Comments ? 
> 
> Very interesting.
> 
> One suggestion: I'm realy not an expert with Xdoclet, but  we may want 
> re-use some of their work or try to have a similiar functionality (not 
> for 5.0.3 of course). Being able to deploy a Servlet/Jsp without having 
> to write a web.xml file will be very helpfull and improve beginner user 
> experience. I know we already have the default web.xml, but I think 
> that's a way to explore.

XDoclet won't do anything for JSP. For servlets, you need to have some 
specific javadocs with the mappings. XDoclet would then generate the 
descriptors.

XDoclet is particularly useful when the descriptors are very painful to 
write (ex: EJB). I think web.xml is ok in terms of complexity, so 
learning the necessary javadocs tags is IMO a waste of time.

To summarize, first time users would be more helped by a GUI app (or 
Eclipse plugin, or whatever) to generate the web.xml, and this GUI could 
then reuse the proposed new deployer to do the last part of the job.

Remy


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Re: [5.0] Deployer (new client feature)

Posted by Jean-Francois Arcand <jf...@apache.org>.

Remy Maucherat wrote:

> The goal would be to provide a useful tool for people using Tomcat 5 
> in production environments. Using the tool will not be required to 
> deploy a web application in Tomcat 5 (ie, all the necessary 
> environment to compile JSPs, the old Jasper runtime, server side XML 
> validation when enabled, will remain present or still be useable 
> through some configuration in the case of XML validation).
>
> The deployer will consist in a set of JARs, one Ant script, some shell 
> scripts for convinience, and one HTML documentation page (also to be 
> added to the main documentation bundle). As a side effect, the 
> deployer will also better showcase the capabilities of the manager 
> application and the associated Ant tasks.
>
> Deploying a webapp through the client would do the following operations:
> - clean the build directory (the "build" subdir of the deployer)
> - copy the to-be-deployed webapp to the build directory
> - compile JSPs to /WEB-INF/src
> - compile generated servlets to /WEB-INF/classes
> - generate mappings for those servlets, and automatically insert the 
> mappings inside the existing web.xml (using DOM, a feature to be added 
> to JSPC)
> - as a convinience feature, compile .java sources present in 
> /WEB-INF/classes
> - (optional) remove /WEB-INF/src folder
> - (optional) remove *.java from /WEB-INF/classes
> - (optional) remove *.jsp from the webapp folders (for security reasons)
> - do a XML schema validation of the webapp's web.xml

>
> - create a WAR archive of the resulting webapp
> - (optional) use the deploy task to deploy to the Tomcat server
>
> The optional parts will be of course controlled using properties 
> (either specified in a properties file or on the command line).
>
> The deployer will not be ready in Tomcat 5.0.2 (unless people think 
> it's a very important new feature, and would like it to be included). 
> In 5.0.3, it will be distributed as a separate download.
>
> Comments ? 

Very interesting.

One suggestion: I'm realy not an expert with Xdoclet, but  we may want 
re-use some of their work or try to have a similiar functionality (not 
for 5.0.3 of course). Being able to deploy a Servlet/Jsp without having 
to write a web.xml file will be very helpfull and improve beginner user 
experience. I know we already have the default web.xml, but I think 
that's a way to explore.

-- Jeanfrancois

>
>
> Remy
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: tomcat-dev-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
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>
>


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