[jboss-dev] JBossAS 5: Using ../..-style paths in application.xml

[Kenny MacLeod]

Folks,

We are in the process of trying to port our existing applications from 
EAP 4.3 to EAP 5.0.1.

Our current sticking point is regarding the way we construct our EARs' 
application.xml files in theWindows development environment. In order to 
allow JBoss to load classes directly from the developers' IDE 
directories, we've been using relative paths in application.xml that 
point directly at those directories, e.g.

<application>
   <module>
     <java>..\..\..\..\..\..\..\path\to\my.jar</java>
   </module>
</application>

In other words, my.jar isn't actually under the EAR's directory 
struture, but somewhere else on the filesystem.

This is a rather dubious practice, but it works without complaint in 
JBossAS 4. The JBossAS 5 VFS however, doesn't like it at all, since it 
can't find my.jar physically under the EAR root directory:

Caused by: java.io.IOException: Child not found my.jar for 
FileHandler at 27267010[path=Test.ear 
context=file:/D:/dev/workspaces/test/TestEAR/build/jboss/ 
real=file:/D:/dev/workspaces/test/TestEAR/build/jboss/Test.ear/], 
available children: [FileHandler at 958828[path=Test.ear/META-INF 
context=file:/D:/dev/workspaces/test/TestEAR/build/jboss/ 
real=file:/D:/dev/workspaces/test/TestEAR/build/jboss/Test.ear/META-INF/]]
         at org.jboss.virtual.VirtualFile.findChild(VirtualFile.java:472)

I can understand entirely why it doesn't like it, but I'm trying to 
convince it otherwise - retaining similarlity to our current envrionment 
as much as possible is highly disrable to reduce the risk of this migration.

Can the VFS be manipulated this way?

Yours hopefully,
kenny