Extensibility/Plugins?

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  • Mitch Williams
    #1

    Extensibility/Plugins?

    One of my friends and I are writing a program to assist in AP
    Statistics. Essentailly the program allows you to plot data in a variety
    of ways and then export it to a browser/word processor friendly file format.

    My question is this: Is there a way to move the classes to seperate
    modules and detect their presence and load them dynamically at runtime?
    IE, how does one go about implementing a plugin system in Java?

    Tags: None
    • Brad BARCLAY
      #2
      Re: Extensibility/Plugins?

      Mitch Williams wrote:
      [color=blue]
      > My question is this: Is there a way to move the classes to seperate
      > modules and detect their presence and load them dynamically at runtime?
      > IE, how does one go about implementing a plugin system in Java?[/color]

      Yes and no. The loading mechanisms can be coded, but automatically
      detecting the plug-ins can be difficult.

      My project, the jSyncManager (http://www.jsyncmanager.org), has two
      different plug-in systems implemented. Feel free to look through the
      sources to see how it works.

      Brad BARCLAY

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
      From the OS/2 WARP v4.5 Desktop of Brad BARCLAY.
      The jSyncManager Project: http://www.jsyncmanager.org
      

        Comment

        • Phil...
          #3
          Re: Extensibility/Plugins?

          Could you not define a particular
          directory for plug ins and load everything
          that is in the directory? When a new
          one is developed just put it there.


          "Brad BARCLAY" <bbarclay@jsync manager.org> wrote in message
          news:mTYcb.8400 3$Lnr1.77340@ne ws01.bloor.is.n et.cable.rogers .com...[color=blue]
          > Mitch Williams wrote:
          >[color=green]
          > > My question is this: Is there a way to move the classes to seperate
          > > modules and detect their presence and load them dynamically at runtime?
          > > IE, how does one go about implementing a plugin system in Java?[/color]
          >
          > Yes and no. The loading mechanisms can be coded, but automatically
          > detecting the plug-ins can be difficult.
          >
          > My project, the jSyncManager (http://www.jsyncmanager.org), has two
          > different plug-in systems implemented. Feel free to look through the
          > sources to see how it works.
          >
          > Brad BARCLAY
          >
          > --
          > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
          > From the OS/2 WARP v4.5 Desktop of Brad BARCLAY.
          > The jSyncManager Project: http://www.jsyncmanager.org
          > 
          >[/color]


            Comment

            • Brad BARCLAY
              #4
              Re: Extensibility/Plugins?

              Phil... wrote:[color=blue]
              > Could you not define a particular
              > directory for plug ins and load everything
              > that is in the directory? When a new
              > one is developed just put it there.[/color]

              You can, but there are downsides to doing this. In particular, if you
              do so you're locked into filesystem-based classloaders. You won't be
              able to use network-based classloaders under such a mechanism, nor will
              you be able to use any that require a DBMS.

              For the jSyncManager, I decided to keep things sufficiently generic for
              now that we can be classloader-neutral. We don't do any access to the
              underlying storage structures. We currently use a set of properties
              that define the classnames of available plug-ins instead. This may
              eventually change, but one of the beauties of Java is it's ability for
              classes to be stored on all sorts of systems other than just traditional
              PC filesystems -- and I want to ensure we can take advantage of that as
              much as possible.

              Brad BARCLAY

              --
              =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
              From the OS/2 WARP v4.5 Desktop of Brad BARCLAY.
              The jSyncManager Project: http://www.jsyncmanager.org
              

                Comment

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