How do I lookup a JNDI Datasource from outside a web container?

Question

I have the following environment set up:

• Java 1.5
• Sun Application Server 8.2
• Oracle 10 XE
• Struts 2
• Hibernate

I'm interested to know how I can write code for a Java client (i.e. outside of a web application) that can reference the JNDI datasource provided by the application server.

The ports for the Sun Application Server are all at their defaults. There is a JNDI datasource named jdbc/xxxx in the server configuration, but I noticed that the Hibernate configuration for the web application uses the name java:comp/env/jdbc/xxxx instead.

Most of the examples I've seen so far involve code like

Context ctx = new InitialContext();
ctx.lookup("jdbc/xxxx");

But it seems I'm either using the wrong JNDI name, or I need to configure a jndi.properties or other configuration file to correctly point to a listener? I have appserv-rt.jar from the Sun Application Server which has a jndi.properties inside of it, but it does not seem to help.

There's a similar question here, but it doesn't give any code / refers to having iBatis obtain the JNDI Datasource automatically: Accessing Datasource from Outside A Web Container (through JNDI)

Answer 1

I got stuck on this exact same problem. I wrote a small tutorial. Basically you have to create your own implementation of the DataSource objects and add them to your own custom initial context. There are source examples here:

Running Beans Locally that use Application Server Data Sources

Answer 2

Try Simple-JNDI. It gives you an in-memory implementation of a JNDI Service and allows you to populate the JNDI environment with objects defined in property files. There is also support for loading datasources or connection pools configured in a file.

To get a connection pool you have to create a file like this:

type=javax.sql.DataSource
driver=com.sybase.jdbc3.jdbc.SybDriver
pool=myDataSource
url=jdbc:sybase:Tds:servername:5000
user=user
password=password

In your application you can access the pool via

Context ctx = new InitialContext();
DataSource ds = (DataSource) ctx.lookup("path/to/your/connectionPool");

I haved used Simple-JNDI for this purpose for years now. But it is not under active development anymore. Because I found some issues concerning shared contexts (especially using datasources), I decided to branch the original project and to add some new features. Now there is a 0.13.0. You can find more about it at https://github.com/h-thurow/Simple-JNDI.