AppFuseAddLibrary

How to add a Library into AppFuse

From time to time you may need to add a library to AppFuse for your specific application. While this is not terribly difficult to do, there are several steps so it can be easy to miss one. Here is a step-by-step walk through so it will be harder to omit anything.

1. Create a new folder for your library in /lib using the pattern libname-version (e.g. /lib/iText-1.1).

2. Add all required .jar's into the folder you created. (e.g. /lib/iText-1.1/iText.jar)

3. Edit /lib/lib.properties to include a section like the following for your library. It is best to add it into its alphabetical location for easy locating in the future.

#
# iText PDF Library - http://www.lowagie.com/iText/download.html
#
itext.version=1.1
itext.dir=${lib.dir}/iText-${itext.version}
itext.jar=${itext.dir}/iText.jar

4. Add library to the necessary classpaths in /properties.xml. If you have only one .jar in your library you can add it to the classpath directly.

    <pathelement location="${itext.jar}"/>

If there is more than one .jar it is easist to add the whole directory.

    <fileset dir="${itext.dir}" includes="*.jar"/>

There are a few classpaths to choose from so be sure to add your library entry to the right one. NOTE: Several of the classpaths are included in others. For example the test classpaths extend the compile classpaths, and the service classpaths extend the dao classpaths.

5. The last step is making sure the library gets added to your deployed webapp. In the package-web target of /build.xml look for the element and add another element.

    <lib file="${itext.jar}"/>  

Or if there is more than one .jar...

    <lib dir="${itext.dir}" includes="*.jar"/>  

Now your dependancy library is completely added to your AppFuse application!