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2.4 Overview of RMI Interfaces and Classes

The interfaces and classes that are responsible for specifying the remote behavior of the RMI system are defined in the java.rmi package hierarchy. The following figure shows the relationship between several of these interfaces and classes:


2.4.1 The java.rmi.Remote Interface

In RMI, a remote interface is an interface that declares a set of methods that may be invoked from a remote Java virtual machine. A remote interface must satisfy the following requirements:

The interface java.rmi.Remote is a marker interface that defines no methods:

public interface Remote {}


A remote interface must at least extend the interface java.rmi.Remote (or another remote interface that extends java.rmi.Remote). However, a remote interface may extend a non-remote interface under the following condition:

For example, the following interface BankAccount defines a remote interface for accessing a bank account. It contains remote methods to deposit to the account, to get the account balance, and to withdraw from the account:

public interface BankAccount extends java.rmi.Remote {
	public void deposit(float amount)
		throws java.rmi.RemoteException;
	public void withdraw(float amount)
		throws OverdrawnException, java.rmi.RemoteException;
	public float getBalance()
		throws java.rmi.RemoteException;
}


The next example shows a valid remote interface Beta that extends a non-remote interface Alpha, which has remote methods, and the interface java.rmi.Remote:

public interface Alpha {
	public final String okay = "constants are okay too";
	public Object foo(Object obj)
		throws java.rmi.RemoteException;
	public void bar() throws java.io.IOException;
	public int baz() throws java.lang.Exception;
}


public interface Beta extends Alpha, java.rmi.Remote {
	public void ping() throws java.rmi.RemoteException;
}



2.4.2 The RemoteException Class

The java.rmi.RemoteException class is the superclass of exceptions thrown by the RMI runtime during a remote method invocation. To ensure the robustness of applications using the RMI system, each remote method declared in a remote interface must specify java.rmi.RemoteException (or one of its superclasses such as java.io.IOException or java.lang.Exception) in its throws clause.

The exception java.rmi.RemoteException is thrown when a remote method invocation fails for some reason. Some reasons for remote method invocation failure include:

The class RemoteException is a checked exception (one that must be handled by the caller of a remote method and is checked by the compiler), not a RuntimeException.


2.4.3 The RemoteObject Class and its Subclasses

RMI server functions are provided by java.rmi.server.RemoteObject and its subclasses, java.rmi.server.RemoteServer and java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject and java.rmi.activation.Activatable.



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