Creating the Enterprise Application

In this section you will use the New Project wizard to create an enterprise application containing an EJB module. The wizard provides an option to create an EJB module when you create the application.

1. Choose File > New Project and select Enterprise Application in the Java EE category. Click Next.
2. Type EntAppEJB for the Project Name. Click Next.
3. Select GlassFish Server for the Server.
4. Confirm that Create EJB Module is selected and deselect Create Web Application Module. Click Finish.

When you click Finish, the IDE creates an enterprise application and an EJB module. In the Projects window, you can see that the EJB Module project is listed under the Java EE Modules node of the enterprise application project.

You can see that three types of projects are now listed in the Projects window: class library, enterprise application and EJB module.

Creating the Session Bean

In this exercise you will use a wizard to create a session bean in the EJB module project. In the wizard you will also create a remote interface for the session bean in the Class Library project.

1. Right-click the EJB module project and choose New > Session Bean.
2. Type MySession for the EJB Name.
3. Type ejb for the Package.
4. Select Stateless for the Session Type.
5. Select the Remote option for Create Interface.
6. Select the EJBRemoteInterface project from the dropdown list. Click Finish.

When you click Finish, the IDE creates the session bean in the ejb package in the EJB module and opens the class in the editor. You can see that MySession implements the MySessionRemote interface and that the EJBRemoteInterface JAR was added as a library of the EJB module.

The wizard also creates a remote interface named MySessionRemote in the ejb package of the EJBRemoteInterface project. The IDE automatically adds the Java EE 6 API Library that is required for the EJB interface.

Adding a Business Method

In this exercise you will create a simple business method in the session bean that returns a string.

1. Right-click in the editor of MySession and choose Insert Code (Alt-Insert; Ctrl-I on Mac) and select Add Business Method.
2. Type getResult for the Method Name and String for the Return Type. Click OK.
3. Make the following changes to modify the getResult method to return a String.

   The class should look like the following.

   @Stateless
   public class MySession implements MySessionRemote {
   
       public String getResult() {
           return "This is My Session Bean";
       }
   }

4. Save your changes.

You now have an enterprise application with a simple EJB that is exposed through a remote interface. You also have an independent class library that contains the EJB interface that can be distributed to other developers. Developers can add the library to their projects if they want to communicate with the EJB that is exposed by the remote interface and do not need to have the sources for the EJB. When you modify the code for the EJB, you only need to distribute a JAR of the updated class library if any of the interfaces change.

When you use the Add Business Method dialog, the IDE automatically implements the method in the remote interface.

Deploying the Enterprise Application

You can now build and run the enterprise application. When you run the application, the IDE will deploy the EAR archive to the server.

1. Right-click the EntAppEJB enterprise application and choose Deploy.

When you click Deploy, the IDE builds the enterprise application and deploys the EAR archive to the server. If you look in the Files window you can see that the EJBRemoteInterface JAR is deployed with the application.

In the Services window, if you expand the Applications node of GlassFish Server you can see that EntAppEJB was deployed.

Creating the Enterprise Application

In this exercise you will use the New Project wizard to create an application client project. If you are deploying to GlassFish 3.1 or 4.x you can create and run an application client as a standalone project. The application client no longer needs to be deployed and run as part of an enterprise application.

Note. If you are deploying to GlassFish 3.0.1, you need to create the application client as a module in an enterprise application project and run the enterprise application.

1. Choose File > New Project and select Enterprise Application Client in the Java EE category. Click Next.
2. Type EntAppClient for the Project Name. Click Next.
3. Select GlassFish Server for the Server. Click Finish.

   Note that you do not need to add the project to an enterprise application.

When you click Finish, the IDE creates the application client project and opens Main.java in the editor.

Adding the Class Library

The class library that contains the remote interface now needs to be added to the classpath of the project to enable the application client to reference the EJB. The class library project is open, so you can use the Call Enterprise Bean dialog to help you generate the code to call the EJB.

If the class library project is not open, you can add the class library to the project in the Projects window by right-clicking the Libraries node and locating the JAR of the EJBRemoteInterface project.

1. Expand the Source Packages node of the EntAppClient project and open Main.java in the editor.
2. Right-click in the source code and choose Insert Code (Alt-Insert; Ctrl-I on Mac) and select Call Enterprise Bean to open the Call Enterprise Bean dialog.
3. Expand the EntAppEJB project node and select MySession. Click OK.
   

   The dialog automatically selects Remote as the interface type. When you click OK, the IDE adds the following annotation to Main.java.

   @EJB
   private static MySessionRemote mySession;

   The IDE also automatically adds EJBRemoteInterface as a project Library.

4. Modify the main method to retrieve the String of the getResult method via the MySessionRemote interface. Save your changes.

   public static void main(String[] args) {
           System.err.println("result = " + mySession.getResult());
       }