Re: JAR classpath with Jython

Hi Wim,
Don Murray forwarded me your email.

> On the request of Valentijn I am trying to make something extensible. 
> We want to program in Java, as a first step we want to call that Java
> code from Jython, perhaps later we want to make a closer integration
> between our code and IDV. Preferably by not changing anything in the
> standard distribution but just adding some jar-files's.
>
> When I load IDV in Eclipse and put our .jar in the classpath everything
> works fine.
>
> When I load IDV outside the debugger it does not work.
> I am new to IDV and new to Jython, so it can be that I am overlooking
> something trivial.
> Setting the classpath on the commandline does not work with -jar.
> Setting the classpath in the manifest does not work, it cannot find my
> class files.
>  

You should be able to run the idv using -classpath and supplying the 
main idv class name,
not running it with -jar. This should work:
java -Xmx512m -classpath idv.jar:/any/other/jar/file 
ucar.unidata.idv.DefaultIdv

To include other jython code yo can do a variety of things:
Have your jython code in a file called "default.py" and put it on a web
site or a file system. Run the idv with:
-sitepath /the/file/system/directory/where/you/put/the/jython
or:
-sitepath http://www.foo.bar/where_you_put_the_jython

Or:

If you have multiple jython files then modify the idv.rbi file that is
in your .metapps directory:
/your/home/directory/.metapps/DefaultIdv/idv.rbi

There is more documentation here:
http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/idv/docs/userguide/SiteConfiguration.html

Or:
In the release there is an unpublicized and somewhat untested extensions 
feature of the idv.
In your .metapps/DefaultIdv directory there should be a subdirectory 
called extensions
The idv will attempt to load class files in any jar files found in that 
directory.
If there is a file called default.py in any of the extension jars it 
will also load those
files.  You can try this out but there are no guarantees about this feature.


-Jeff