Netbeans Platform and Module Dependencies

[Josiah.Haswell]

Hello everyone,

I've just begun to use the Netbeans Platform, and I have to say it's amazing. However, I have a question regarding module dependencies.

For one of my projects I'm using several external libraries. Over the course of the next year or so, I plan on writing at least several modules, each of which is in some way dependent upon the external libraries. It seems inefficient to add the external libraries (in the form of JAR files) to each module. Does anyone know of a way I could add the libraries to just one module, and add that module as a dependency for all of the other modules? I've tried creating a "core" module with all of the jars added to its classpath, and then adding that single module as a module dependency for all of the others, but I can't seem to access the code in the core module.

Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

Joe

[levent]

Hi Joe,

As far i understand you are looking for "Library Wrapper Module Project". Select File -> New Project -> Netbeans Plug-in Modules. You should see that project type at the right panel. Follow the instructions to add your jar files to that project. And once that project is created, add dependency of it to your other modules.

[Josiah.Haswell]

Thanks very much. It looks like that's what I was looking for.

Joe

[Josiah.Haswell]

I'm sorry, I have one last question: Two of the libraries by default share the same code name base (e.g. xalan and xerces share org.apache). Should I wrap them in the same module, or should I change the code name base on one of them? (Will changing the code name base mess up the internal imports?).


Thanks!

Joe

[levent]

Hi again Joe,

I dont have enough experience on this but i think changing names space should not be a good idea for long term maintainability of the project.

By the way, as far as i remember there should already be a xerces module available inside netbeans. You might use that too. I have the Netbeans RCP book. I remember that they already have a Apache library included and i guess that was Xerces. I can check it if you can not find relevant information..

[Josiah.Haswell]

Ok. Thanks for the tip. I'll try to work around it.

Joe

[levent]

Let us know your decision if possible..

[Josiah.Haswell]

Will do!

Joe

[Josiah.Haswell]

I've discovered that wrapping two jars that share the same namespace into one module wrapper doesn't appear cause problems, and seems to be working. I've yet to see how this will affect maintainability. If you add any Netbeans module that shares a namespace it causes the same problem.

Joe

[levent]

But don't those libraries has their own namespace (e.g. org.apache.xerces and org.apache.xalan)?

[Josiah.Haswell]

Gah. They do, but the problem doesn't become apparent until you try to use the module. Sorry, I was mistaken.

I'm going to try to add them as libraries to an empty module, and then see if I can access them through that one.

Joe