Installing JNDI File System Service Provider

JDBC Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Derby (Java DB) JDBC DataSource Objects

∟Installing JNDI File System Service Provider

This section describes how to download and install File System Service Provider for JNDI.

Derby JDBC DataSource class can be used directly to create a connection as shown in the previous tutorial. But that's not the suggested way of getting a connection. JDBC document suggests you to create DataSource object and make it available through a directory service via JNDI. The application program can retrieve it whenever needed.

In order to try this method, I have to download and install the JNDI File System Service Provider package from Sun (now Oracle) as described below:

Go to DOWNLOAD JNDI SOFTWARE Website at java.sun.com/products/jndi/downloads/.
Click the Download link next to "Download JNDI 1.2.1 & More".
Click the radio button: "Accept License Agreement".
Click the link: "File System Service Provider, 1.2 Beta 3", create a directory \local\fscontext, and save the downloaded file as: \local\fscontext\fscontext-1_2-beta3.zip.
Unzip \local\fscontext\fscontext-1_2-beta3.zip. You are done with the installation.

Open \local\fscontext\doc\providers\jndi-fs.html to read the documentation. The first paragraph gives you a good summary:

JNDI offers a universal naming API and a standardized way to store objects in a namespace. The file system service provider supports these features for a local or networked file system. Its purpose is two-fold:

Allow clients to traverse the file system namespace using JNDI's context interface.

Allow clients to store Java objects in the file system.

These two separate functions are actually handled by two different providers (i.e., classes). The first class handles accessing the file system and can be used independently of the second. The second class handles storage of Java objects and is used in conjunction with the first (i.e., it is a subclass of the first).