I'm having a problem I simply can't get my head around.
I'm creating a jsf application where I (as administrator) can upload a jar file, and that way around update the application.
Through this tutorial: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/jar/jarclassloader.html I have managed to classload the jar file. The first issue is that I can only class load as "Object" and not cast to an other class type. I get a ClassCastException.
JarClassLoader jcl=new JarClassLoader(url);
Class cl= jcl.retreiveClass(jcl.getMainClassName());
Object ob=cl.newInstance(); //I would like to make this a RouteBuilder object instead of Object
Concretely I'm using Apache Camel, where I can add routes to an existing "core" (CamelContext). What's happening is that I have the core of apache camel running in my web app, and I can then add routes runtime. It's a route I want to package as a jar and load into the app runtime (I want to develop and test the route in my local environment, and then afterwords upload it to the production application). A concrete route is just a simple java class that extends RouteBuilder. I want to upload the jar, classLoad (URLClassLoader) the main class (maybe the whole jar? - does that make sense?), and convert it to a RouteBuilder. This seems to be impossible. I have chosen to upload the jar file to a folder outside my war, so that the routes do not get erased when I restart the webapp (is this smart or should this be done in an other way?). Is that a problem regarding name spaces? Furthermore, I haven't been able to find out whether I need to traverse my entire jar file and classload ever single class inside. Any comments on that?
To me it seems like I have some fundamental misconceptions on how extending / updating a java application is done. I simply can't find any good examples/explanations on how to solve my problem and therefore I conclude that I don't get this on a conceptual level.
Could someone elaborate on how to extend a running jsf application (I guess the same issues are relevant in native java apps), explain how to upload and class load a jar at runtime, and how to cast loaded classes to other class types than Object?
Thanks
Lasse