TDIing out loud, ok SDIing as well

Ramblings on the paradigm-shift that is TDI.

Monday, November 10, 2008

New Component and Library .jar Files

Generally, adding a new component to TDI's library amounts to either 1) copying the relevant jar files to the [TDI Installation Folder]/jars sub-directory; or 2) leaving these files where they are and instead telling TDI where to find them.

This latter is done by setting the com.ibm.di.loader.userjars property found near the top of the solution.properties file which is located in your Solution Directory.

According to the instructional comments found in the property file, you can set this property to a list of directory paths, or a list of files, or any combination of the two. For example,
com.ibm.di.loader.userjars=C:\Notes;CustomJars;C:\Drivers\jdbcDrv.jar

Using this property lets you keep custom jar  files either in place, or in a common area like the CustomJars folder I use. This can be preferrable to copying them into the TDI product installation folder.

Due to the mystical dance of Java loaders, sometimes these library files may need to be available to other loaders, in which case you end up having to do one or both of the following:

a). Modifying the PATH in the ibmditk and ibmdisrv files to include additional folders*.

b). Modifying the CLASSPATH line in these files for this same purpose.

I have several sub-folders to my own CustomJars directory, each containing the library files associated with a particular data source, like "Maximo", "Lotus" and so forth. TDI's loader checks all sub-folders under root directory specified, making it simple to keep these organized and backed up.

Note: libraries can be in zip files as well.

*Note: For Domino integration you will want to put the Notes path first: SET PATH=c:\Notes;%PATH% - since a little bird told me that only the first 128 chars are used by the Notes loader. At least for older versions.

...and I know there was something else I wanted to mention...

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