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Posted to server-user@james.apache.org by Danny Angus <Da...@slc.co.uk> on 2004/10/07 10:11:29 UTC

Re: Mailet: Getting MailRepository and UsersRepository from MailetContext

-> I was able to get this to work. Not sure it's *the*
-> way to do it, though... Carl

You've spotted our private shame ;-)
With the crrent version of the Mailet API that is the only way.
In fact this is a defect in the API, it compels you to have some knowedge
of the "vendor specific" architecture of the Mailet container.
In this respect it breaks the separation of concerns and the portability of
mailets between vendor architectures.
In future versions of the API this defect will be fixed by the simple
expedient of requiring certain (specified) services and resources to be
registered in a JNDI context.

This might (read probably will) require the addition of some interfaces to
the API as abstract representations of the services, but on the whole these
already exist in James and it need not involve more than package-name
refactoring of the interfaces.

It is our intention that it will remain possible to allow the avalon access
route in James (to support our installed user-base) but this will be
disabled by default and eventually it is planned to close this loophole and
enforce all interactions bewteen mailets and the server to be via specified
vendor independant mechanisms alone.
When I say "vendor independant" I would hope that we can re-craft all our
"hidden" dependancies with only reference to java.*, javax.* and
org.apache.mailet.* alone, and remove all 3rd party dependance restrictions
from developers who comply with the API.

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Re: Mailet: Getting MailRepository and UsersRepository from MailetContext

Posted by Carl Downs <ca...@yahoo.com>.

Thanks for the reply Danny... apologies for the latent response.

I see. That makes sense now. The JNDI method would be a clean way to provide access. And as you say James already seems to have most of the abstract representations of the services (in org.apache.james.services) needed so this (package renaming, etc) shouldn't be too disruptive for users like me.

I was wondering one thing, though. If the transition that you speak of is in the works now, no sense in changing anything-- just let folks access the vendor-specific stuff directly for now. If, on the other hand, it will be a while before this change arrives, wouldn't it be simpler for users to understand what's happening and to cope with the change by just adding the interface methods (and GenericServlet impls) back in with a proviso in the javadocs that describes the group's plans? Just a thought. :-)

Thanks again,
Carl

Danny Angus <Da...@slc.co.uk> wrote:

-> I was able to get this to work. Not sure it's *the*
-> way to do it, though... Carl

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