Java Reference
In-Depth Information
13.2.2. Class loading in Java EE applications
An EAR module consisting of multiple EJB-JARs, WARs, and RARs, as well as supporting
third-party libraries, will contain thousands of classes. It's up to the Java EE server to
provide a class-loading strategy that ensures all the applications can resolve the classes they
need.
Despite the importance of class loading, the Java EE specification doesn't provide imple-
mentation standards for EE server class loaders. The implementation is largely up to the EE
server provider. What the Java EE specification does provide is the standards for the visib-
ility and sharing of classes between different modules within an EAR. We'll look at these
standards in the next section, but first, take a look at
figure 13.3
to see the typical strategy
most EE servers use to implement class loading.
