The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Delphi/J2EE Integration

We are currently trying to link up our Delphi 7 application to some existing EJB's. Has anyone here tackled anything like this before? The way I see it, we have a few possibilities:

1) Create a HTTP Transport layer (have a servlet call the EJB and format the results into a binary/XML formatted response for the client)

2) Create a java app that listens on a socket for a connection from the Delphi client and make it work similar to option 1

3) Use some sort of Java/COM integration (this would probably require creating a java app that runs on the client also.

We would like to limit the amount of changes made to the client application if at all possible

Thanks!

joe
Tuesday, April 27, 2004

The Delphi remoting library called 'kbmMW' has some built-in functionality that looks to me pretty close to what you're looking for. You can apparently create a kbmMW server in Delphi that will provide kbmMW clients with access to EJB-based services.

See the site at http:/www.components4developers.com and the 'white paper' on integrating kbmMW with Java at:
http://www.components4programmers.com/products/kbmmw/docs/Combining_kbmMW_and_Java.pdf

I use kbmMW myself and it's a solid library. Haven't done anything in it with Java so can't give much of an opinion there, but I'd expect that Kim Madsen (author of kbmMW) has done a good job there, too.

Herbert Sitz
Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Along the lines of #1, use GLUE from webMethods ( http://www.webmethods.com/solutions/wM_Glue/ ) to expose the EJB as a web service and then use whatever Delphi has for SOAP.

Lou Franco
Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Could you use CORBA for this?

John Topley (www.johntopley.com)
Wednesday, April 28, 2004

There is a chapter on Delphi/EJB interfaces in the 'CORBA' chapter of the SAMS 'Delphi 6 Developer's Guide'. Later versions too probably. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672321157/qid=1083322796/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-2658620-1597747?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Includes Delphi/web services too |8-)

Delphi newsgroups discuss this occasionally. It's a common need.

quietMan
Friday, April 30, 2004