Re: [Openjnlp-devel] ClassLoader, Native Methods, and Java 1.1

[Kevin H. <ke...@na...>]

On Tuesday, November 20, 2001, at 12:26 , Doug Zwick wrote:

[...]
> I've just been looking at the recent update to FileCacheClassLoader, and
> its one of the Java-2-only changes (java.net.URLClassLoader is 1.2+). We

Yes, this is a temporary situation, as the JDK1.1 version of OpenJNLP is 
forking from the Java2 version. As soon as cache updating by last 
modified date is implemented (JNLP refers to this as "basic"  
downloading) the JDK1.1 target will be added. This should happen within 
a few days since the basic downloading is nearly done.

> are getting pressure to demo something under OS 9. Is the limitation of
> the old FileCacheClassLoader something that can be hacked around? I'm
> not yet clear on why the old code is failing when a native method is
> called. Any hints at a work-around would be greatly appreciated, or

The inner workings of handling native libraries is a bit involved, 
especially for Java 1.1 platforms. Java2 class loaders can implement 
ClassLoader.findLibrary() to return an appropriate location for the 
nativelib, but this is not the case with Java 1.1. Trying to get 
nativelib stuff working in OpenJNLP for both Java2 and Java 1.1 are high 
on the list, but is it worth holding up the next release? I could go 
either way since more and more people want nativelib support, but it's 
difficult to test.

> pointers to documentation on the inner workings of a ClassLoader.

A description of how native stuff works for Java 1.1 is at 
<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/native1.1/index.html>.