Title: Simple Stateless Example
# Overview
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This example shows how to create a Stateless session EJB using annotations.
As stated in the "JSR 220: Enterprise JavaBeansTM,Version 3.0 - EJB Core
Contracts and Requirements",
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"Stateless session beans are session beans whose instances have no
conversational state. This means that all bean instances are equivalent
when they are not involved in servicing a client-invoked method. The term
'stateless' signifies that an instance has no state for a specific client."
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What this means is quite simply that stateless beans are *shared*. They do
in fact have state as you can assign values to the variables, etc. in the
bean instance. The only catch is there are a *pool* of identical instances
and you are not guaranteed to get the exact same instance on every call.
For each call, you get whatever instance happens to be available. This is
identical to checking out a book from the library or renting a movie from
the video store. You are essentially checking out or renting a new bean
instance on each method call.
With EJB 3.0, it's now possible to write stateless session bean without
specifying a deployment descriptor; you basically have to write just a
remote or local business interface, which is a plain-old-java-interface,
annotated with the @Remote or @Local annotation the stateless session bean
implementation, a plain-old-java-object which implements the remote or the
local business interface and is annotated with the @Stateless annotation
_This example is the "simple-stateless" example located in the [openejb-examples.zip](openejb:download.html)
available on the download page._
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# The Code
In this example we develop a simple EJB 3 Stateless session EJB. Every
stateless session bean implementation must be annotated using the
annotation *@Stateless* or marked that way in the ejb-jar.xml file.
Our Stateless bean has 2 business interfaces: CalculatorRemote, a remote
business interface, and CalculatorLocal, a local business interface. A
minimum of one business interface is required.
## Bean
{snippet:id=code|url=openejb3/examples/simple-stateless/src/main/java/org/superbiz/calculator/CalculatorImpl.java|lang=java}
In EJB 3.0 session beans do not need to implement the javax.ejb.SessionBean
interface. You can simply annotate it as @Stateless if you want it to be a
stateless session bean.
Users of EJB 2.x may notice the bean actually implements the business
interfaces! In the prior version of EJB implementing the remote interface
(which derives from javax.ejb.EJBObject) in your bean was just not allowed.
Now there is no javax.ejb.EJBObject requirement, so implementing the
business interfaces is standard practice for EJB 3.0.
## Local business interface
{snippet:id=code|url=openejb3/examples/simple-stateless/src/main/java/org/superbiz/calculator/CalculatorLocal.java|lang=java}
Local interfaces in EJB are *pass-by-reference* interfaces. Meaning that
*normal java semantics* are used for passing arguments, return values and
exceptions. A business local interface can be any plain java interface.
There are no restrictions on the method arguments, return types, or throws
clauses.
Unless specified otherwise, every interface your bean implements (and it's
parent class implements and so on) is considered to be a local business
interface. You can use the *@Local* annotation to explicitly state that an
interface is a local interface, but this is not required.
You'll notice that in EJB 3.0 the Local Business Interface of a stateless
session bean does not need to extend from javax.ejb.EJBLocalObject and does
not need a javax.ejb.EJBLocalHome interface as they did in EJB 2.x and
prior. Per the vocabulary of the EJB spec, interfaces that implement
javax.ejb.EJBLocalObject or javax.ejb.EJBLocalHome are considered Component
Interfaces and the plain java interface above is considered a Business
Interface.
## Remote business interface
{snippet:id=code|url=openejb3/examples/simple-stateless/src/main/java/org/superbiz/calculator/CalculatorRemote.java|lang=java}
Remote interfaces are *pass-by-value* interfaces. Meaning that all method
parameters, return values, and exceptions are *serialized* on every call.
The result is that you get a copy of the original object and not the
original object. The advantage is of course that Remote interfaces can be
used to invoke an EJB across a network in a client-server fashion. There
are no restrictions on the Remote interface itself, but there are on the
data passed in and out of the remote interface. The *values* passed into a
method or returned from a method of a Remote interface *must be
serializable*. It is fine for the method signature to be, for example,
"public Object myMethod(Object myParam)" as long as the *value* passed in
and returned implements *java.io.Serializable*.
As stated above, the Remote Business Interface of a bean can be any plain
old interface. It does not need to extend javax.ejb.EJBObject, it does not
need a javax.ejb.EJBHome, the methods do not need to throw
javax.rmi.RemoteException, and the bean class *can* implement it!
At minimum the interface must be annotated with *@Remote* either in the
interface itself or in the bean class, or the interface must be declared
via in the ejb-jar.xml.
# Writing a unit test for the example
Writing an unit test for the stateless session EJb is quite simple. We need
just to write a setup method to create and initialize the InitialContext,
and then write our test methods
## setUp
{snippet:id=setup|url=openejb3/examples/simple-stateless/src/test/java/org/superbiz/calculator/CalculatorTest.java|lang=java}
## Test the local business interface
{snippet:id=local|url=openejb3/examples/simple-stateless/src/test/java/org/superbiz/calculator/CalculatorTest.java|lang=java}
## Test the remote business interface
{snippet:id=remote|url=openejb3/examples/simple-stateless/src/test/java/org/superbiz/calculator/CalculatorTest.java|lang=java}
{info:title=JNDI Names}
Note that JNDI names for Java SE clients are not standardized by the EJB
spec. This is unfortunate and something being addressed in EJB 3.1. The
default schema that OpenEJB uses is ejbName + interfaceType (i.e. Local,
Remote, LocalHome, RemoteHome), so in our example "CalculatorImpl" +
"Local" and "CalculatorImpl" + "Remote". You can in fact change this
default to be absolutely [anything you want](jndi-names.html)
including interface class name, ejb class name, and more.
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# Running
Running the example is fairly simple. In the "simple-stateless" directory
of the [examples zip](openejb:download.html)
, just run:
$ mvn clean install
Which should create output like the following.
-------------------------------------------------------
T E S T S
-------------------------------------------------------
Running org.superbiz.calculator.CalculatorTest
Apache OpenEJB 3.0 build: 20080408-04:13
http://openejb.apache.org/
INFO - openejb.home =
/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless
INFO - openejb.base =
/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless
INFO - Configuring Service(id=Default Security Service,
type=SecurityService, provider-id=Default Security Service)
INFO - Configuring Service(id=Default Transaction Manager,
type=TransactionManager, provider-id=Default Transaction Manager)
INFO - Configuring Service(id=Default JDK 1.3 ProxyFactory,
type=ProxyFactory, provider-id=Default JDK 1.3 ProxyFactory)
INFO - Found EjbModule in classpath:
/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless/target/classes
INFO - Configuring app:
/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless/target/classes
INFO - Configuring Service(id=Default Stateless Container, type=Container,
provider-id=Default Stateless Container)
INFO - Auto-creating a container for bean CalculatorImpl:
Container(type=STATELESS, id=Default Stateless Container)
INFO - Loaded Module:
/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless/target/classes
INFO - Assembling app:
/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless/target/classes
INFO - Jndi(name=CalculatorImplLocal) --> Ejb(deployment-id=CalculatorImpl)
INFO - Jndi(name=CalculatorImplRemote) -->
Ejb(deployment-id=CalculatorImpl)
INFO - Created Ejb(deployment-id=CalculatorImpl, ejb-name=CalculatorImpl,
container=Default Stateless Container)
INFO - Deployed
Application(path=/Users/dblevins/work/openejb-3.0/examples/simple-stateless/target/classes)
Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.845 sec
Results :
Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0