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How to Use This Book
This book teaches you how to write directory-enabled Java™ applications by using the Java Naming and Directory Interface™ (JNDI). It is divided into two parts: a tutorial and a reference.
It is intended as a tutorial and reference only for the JNDI and not for the rest of the Java Platform. For a tutorial-style presentation of the class libraries in the rest of the Java Platform, see The Jav™ Tutorial and The JFC Swing Tutorial, by Mary Campione and Kathy Walrath, and The Java™ Tutorial Continued, by Mary Campione, Kathy Walrath, Allison Huml, and the Tutorial team. For a reference-style presentation of the class libraries in other parts of the Java Platform, see The Java™ Class Libraries books by Patrick Chan, Rosanna Lee, and Douglas Kramer. This book also does not explain any part of the Java programming language. Several books are available for learning the language. These include The Java™ Programming Language, by Ken Arnold and James Gosling, and The Java™ Language Specification, by James Gosling, Bill Joy, and Guy Steele.
Following is an overview of this book.
Tutorial
The first part of this book is a tutorial. It is modeled after The Java Tutorial, by Mary Campione and Kathy Walrath.
Trails and Lessons
The tutorial consists of six trails-programming lessons grouped together by topic. To learn about a certain topic, go to the Table of Contents, decide which trail meets your needs, and go through the lessons in that trail. For example, if you are interested in writing a service provider, select the Building a Service Provider trail.
You can read the tutorial sequentially or select trails in any order. However, some of the beginner trails are prerequisites for the more advanced trails.
The first page of a trail contains a high-level overview of the trail. It lists, describes, and provides references to all of the lessons on the trail. It also provides a detailed table of contents of the lessons in the trail.
Each lesson begins with an introduction to the material in the lesson. Most lessons contain many examples. Trying the examples as you go along will help you to understand the concepts discussed in each lesson.
Links
The online version of this tutorial is filled with hyperlinks to sections inside and outside of the tutorial. In this hardcopy version of the tutorial, these hyperlinks have been handled as follows.
- A link to a section, lesson, or trail within the tutorial is replaced by a cross reference, annotated by a page number.
- A link to a method, class, interface, or package in the JNDI has been removed. Use instead the reference part of this book to look up the item.
- A link to an Internet RFC or Internet-draft has been removed. These documents may be accessed both from the CD that accompanies this book and the Web site at http://www.ietf.org.
- A link to an external document or software has been replaced by the item's URL. These files may also be found on the accompanying CD.
- A link to a sample program or configuration file has been removed. Simply find the file on the accompanying CD (see later in this Preface for instructions).
Examples
All of the code examples in the tutorial have been compiled and run by using the following software.
- The FCS version of the Java™ 2 SDK, Standard Edition, v1.2 on either Solaris or Windows NT or both
- The 1.2.1 version of the JNDI class libraries
- The 1.2.2 version of the LDAP service provider
- The 1.2 Beta 2 version of the file system service provider
Most of the complete examples are available both online from the JNDI Web site ( http://java.sun.com/products/jndi/tutorial ) and on the accompanying CD. This tutorial is located in the Tutorials/jndi directory on the CD. Each trail resides in its own directory, under which are located subdirectories for each lesson within the trail. The examples and related files used in a lesson are found in the src subdirectory of the lesson's directory. For example, the examples in the Naming Operations lesson in The Basics trail are found in the Tutorials/jndi/basics/naming/src directory. Tools and utilities for configuring the examples are found in the directories Tutorials/jndi/config/fs and Tutorials/jndi/config/LDAP.
We strongly encourage you to try the examples that accompany this tutorial as you go along. To do that, you will need the JNDI classes and a v1.1.2 or higher version of the Java Platform software, such as the JDK software ( http://java.sun.com/products/jdk ). The JDK provides a compiler that you can use to compile Java programs. It also provides an interpreter for running Java applications. To run Java applets, you can use the JDK Applet Viewer or any Java-compatible Web browser, such as the HotJava™ browser.
Online Version
The complete online tutorial is available both on the accompanying CD and from the JNDI Web site. The title page of each lesson contains a URL for the corresponding lesson online.
Reference
The second part of this book is a reference. Its format is similar to a dictionary's in that it is designed to optimize the time that it takes for you to look up information about a class or class member.
Package Overviews
The package overviews briefly describe each package and its classes. Each overview includes a general description about the package, as well as diagrams that show the inheritance hierarchy of its classes.
Alphabetical Reference of Classes
This part covers the alphabetical listing of the classes from the following five packages:
javax.naming
javax.naming.directory
javax.naming.event
javax.naming.ldap
javax.naming.spi
The classes are ordered alphabetically without regard to package. Each is described in its own chapter that contains a picture of the class hierarchy, a class description, a member summary, and descriptions for each member. Most examples for the class or items within the class are found in the tutorial part of this book.
Class Hierarchy Diagram
Each chapter starts with a class diagram like that shown in Figure i. This diagram shows all of the ancestors of the class, its siblings, its immediate descendents, and any interfaces that it implements. In these diagrams, if a package name precedes a class or interface name, then the class or interface is not in the same package as the current class.
In the diagrams, the different kinds of Java entities are distinguished visually as follows:
- The interface: A rounded rectangle
- The class: A rectangle
- The abstract class: A rectangle with an empty dot
- The final class: A rectangle with a black dot
- Classes with subclasses: A rectangle with a small black triangle in the lower-right corner
The class or interface being described in the current chapter is shaded grey. A solid line represents extends and a dotted line represents implements.
Class Description
In the class description, we describe all of the properties of the class. For example, the discussion of the properties of the Context interface includes information on how names and environment properties are treated. Describing in one place all of a class's ava
