Accessing COM objects remotely
EZ JCom can be used to access COM objects remotely, from any other
Java platform. The other platform can be another Windows computer,
or it can be any other computer that supports Java, for instace, Linux, Unix,
Mac, Handhelds, or PDAs.
When EZ JCom is being used to access COM objects remotely, it will
be referenced in this documentation as running in remote mode. Otherwise, it
will be referenced as running in native mode.
The recommend method of developing remote mode EZ JCom applications is
to develop them first in native mode. Once the application is running
satisfactorily in native mode, it can then be moved and tested in remote
mode. For this, the following changes are required:
The EZ JCom Wizard
(Re) Run the Wizard, and on the page for additional features,
click "Remote Access Support...", then select the option
to "Build Remote Access files." This will generate files
in a subdirectory named ezjRemoteClient. There will also
be "MakeJava.bat" and "MakeJar.bat" files in this subdirectory,
to make the class files and the jar file.
On the local computer
On the computer where the COM object resides, you must start
the EZ JCom server. This can be done by executing the
program EzjService.exe from the C:\EZJcom folder
(where you installed EZ JCom,)
and clicking the button Install EZ JCom Server as a Windows Service.
Make sure the server has the following items available:
- The ezjcom18.jar file must be in the server's classpath.
- The class files for the COM object must
be in the server's classpath. (These are the original class files
from compiling the java files that EZ JCom creates
on behalf of the COM object.)
- The JNI DLL for the COM object should be in the C:\WINDOWS folder or
the C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder.
Note: The server's classpath is the "SYSTEM" classpath, and
not the "USER" classpath. If you change the SYSTEM classpath,
you will need to stop and start the server in order for it
to be able to see the changed classpath.
Click for explanation of SYSTEM vs USER classpath.
An alternate way to place things in the server classpath is
by clicking the "View/Modify EZ JCom Server Configuration", and
then by specifying the "Additional Classpath".
On the remote computer
- The file ezjcom18.jar which is placed in the classpath
in native mode, needs to be replaced by the file ezjcomRemoteClient18.jar
in the classpath.
- When you ran EZ JCom on the COM objects, it generated a number
of Java files that provided an API for your application. All of
these are native mode files. But in the sub-directory (folder)
called "ezjcomRemoteClient", EZ JCom has generated the corresponding
remote mode files. Compile the files in "ezjcomRemoteClient", and use
these on the remote machine. For convenience, a jar file may be
used for placement on the remote machine(s).
-
When you run the application on the remote machine, you must provide
it the name or IP address of the EZ JCom server. There are a few
different ways of doing this, but a simple way is by specifying
it on the Java command line. For instance, if your normal
command line to start your application is
java -classpath myfile.jar;comobj.jar;ezjcom18.jar MyProgram
you would need to modify it to
java -Dezjcom.hostname=thehost -classpath myfile.jar;remoteComobj.jar;ezjcomRemoteClient18.jar MyProgram
The definition for "ezjcom.hostname" tells EZ JCom to look for a EZ JCom server running on "thehost".
Server Topics:
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