Chapter 7 Developing Applications with PowerJ and EAServer

Building Java WAR and EAR archive files

In PowerJ 3.6, J2EE components are associated with two new collection targets: WAR files and EAR files. These are the collection targets for J2EE Web Applications and Enterprise Applications.

When you create a new J2EE component using a wizard, you can create a new JAR target for an EJB component or a new WAR target for a JSP or servlet component. You also have the option of adding the component to an existing archive file. Multiple EJBs can be included in a single JAR target and multiple servlets and JSPs can be added to a single WAR target. The component wizards also give you the option of postponing the decision about the archive file until later. You can use the Java JAR, Java WAR, or Java EAR wizards to create new JAR, WAR or EAR targets and add component targets to them.

J2EE conventions The J2EE specification recommends the following conventions on how to package your components in archive collection targets:

JAR files can contain EJBs
WAR files can contain servlets, JSP pages, Java utility classes and libraries, static documents such as HTML pages, image and sound files, and client side applets, beans, and classes
EAR files can contain JAR files, WAR files, and application client modules

If you do not follow these conventions, your components may not deploy to Jaguar or, if deployed, your application may not work as designed.