Jair Rillo Junior’s blog

RAD 7.0 (Rational Application Developer) is a complete IDE from IBM to work with Java application. However the version 7.0 does not offer support for EJB3 (if you want to full support, you must try out the version 7.5 Beta), but you can use it to create your EJB3 project without problem. In this article I am going to show you how to do that in a simple way.

First of all, you must have installed the Websphere 6.1 with Service Pack for EJB 3. If you do not know how to install it, check out this post.

Creating the Enterprise Application Project

Open the RAD 7 and the J2EE Perspective. Then right-click on Package Explorer and go to New -> Enterprise Application Project
Put the Project name (in my case Test) and click on Finish button.

You are going to see on Package Explorer the project called Test, however RAD will complain about an error “A J2EE Enterprise Application must contain one or more modules. Test/META-INF application.xml”. It happens because none project have been added to EAR project yet.

Creating the EJB Project

Important: DO NOT CREATE AN EJB PROJECT USING RAD WIZARD!!!. If you create an EJB Project using RAD Wizard, it will create the files used for EJB 2.1, not 3.0.
So, what kind of project should I create? Answer: Create a simple Java Project.
You can go to Java perspective, right click on Project Explorer and go to New -> Project. In my case, I’ve created a Java project called TestEJB.
After the project is created, it is time to add it as a Project Utility in the EAR and also add it (manually) as a EJB module.

Adding the EJB Module to the EAR

Open the EAR Deployment Descriptor (application.xml) in J2EE Perspective. Click on Module tab and then Add the Java Project as Project Utility JARs.

After that, go to Source tab and insert the following code:

		TestEJB.jar

Save the application.xml file and you will notify that RAD will not complain about the previous error anymore.

Using annotations

If you have Websphere 6.1 + EJB3 service pack installed, you will be able to use the EJB3 Annotations.
If you do not want to use the ejb-jar.xml file (it is recommended), you must provide, at least, one class ANNOTATED, otherwise Websphere will not start the application.
So, just for test, create an Interface (File -> New -> Interface). Put it into stateless package and give it a name: TestComponent. Its content is below:

package stateless;
 
public interface TestComponent {
 
	public void doSomeStuff();
 
}

After that, let’s create a class that implements this interface. Go to File -> New -> Class, put in the same package (stateless) and put the name: TestComponentBean. The content is below:

package stateless;
 
import javax.ejb.Remote;
import javax.ejb.Stateless;
 
@Stateless
@Remote(TestComponent.class)
public class TestComponentBean implements TestComponent {
 
	public void doSomeStuff() {
		System.out.println("Hello EJB3 World in Websphere 6.1 + RAD 7");
	}
}

Done! Our EJB Project is created and ready to be used. Also, a simple component has been developed.

As you can see, none XML file were configured, but if you want to map your component through a ejb-jar.xml file, you must create it within META-INF directory. A simple content is below:

	 TestEJB
 
			TestComponent
			stateless.TestComponentBean
			Stateless

Creating a Web Project as Client

To make sure our EJB Project, as well as our first component are working, let’s create a Web Project as client to call the EJB component.
Open the Web perspective and create a new Dynamic Web Project. In my case, I’ve created with the name TestWeb. Make sure to check the option Add project to an EAR and choose the Test ear.
Right after the Web project is created, you must associate it with the EJB project. To do that simply right click on TestWeb -> Properties -> J2EE Modules Dependencies. Check the EJB Project.

Now the Web Project will recognize the TestComponent interface from TestEJB project.

Create an Servlet to call the EJB Component, for instance: TestServlet and insert the following code:

package servlets;
 
import java.io.IOException;
 
import javax.ejb.EJB;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
 
import stateless.TestComponent;
 
public class TestServlet extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet {
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
 
	@EJB
	private TestComponent testComponent;
 
	protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
		//Call the method from EJB component
		testComponent.doSomeStuff();
	}
}

To run the code, right-click on TestServlet, go to Run As -> Run on Server. After the server is started, you should see on the Console the phrase:

The article is over. Any question, comment, feedback are welcome. I hope this article be useful for anyone else.