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components using XDoclet. You will build a Servlet, a Custom Tag (taglib) and develop

3 EJB components.

You may be wondering: "Why should I care? I am an excellent Java/J2EE Web

developer and I have never needed XDoclet." Simply put, you don t know what you are

missing. Once you start using XDoclet, you will not stop. XDoclet is the missing piece

in you J2EE development process. It will speed development. Once you have mastered

the basics, you can go on to generate your code based on your own custom XDoclet

templates.

What do I need to know for this tutorial?

This tutorial assumes you have a working knowledge of Java technology and XML.

Knowledge of J2EE technology and Ant are helpful but not required to understand the

key concepts. Ant is used to build, and deploy the example applications. Links to

introductory material on Ant, Java technology, J2EE , XML, and EJB technology are

provided in the references section at the end of this tutorial.

The source code in the tutorial has been tested with

Tomcat

, and

Resin EE

. The

applications should be easy to port to other J2EE compliant application servers like

IBM WebSphere Application Server

.

I used the Eclipse Framework to create the examples. The examples are easiest to run

by downloading Eclipse 2.1 or higher and a J2EE application server plug in for Eclipse.

Eclipse has excellent support for Ant, which facilitates running the Ant XDoclet tasks

right from the IDE environment.

If you are new to Ant, please read this sample chapter from Mastering Tomcat on

Developing Web Components with Ant (written by yours truly)

"http://www.rickhightower.com/AntPrimer.pdf"

. Just read the sections on Ant

development for now.

What this tutorial covers

This tutorial covers getting started with XDoclet to speed J2EE development. The

tutorial has three step by step examples applying XDoclet development to Servlets,

Custom Tags, and EJB. All examples, ships with a set of Ant build scripts so you can

easily create your own custom solutions by reusing the sample build files.

Enhance J2EE component reuse with XDoclets

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