Certain features of the Ice for Java run-time necessitate dynamic class loading. Applications with special requirements can supply a custom class loader for Ice to use in the following situations:
- Unmarshaling user exceptions and instances of concrete Slice classes
- Loading Ice plug-ins
- Loading IceSSL certificate verifiers and password callbacks
If an application does not supply a class loader (or if the application-supplied class loader fails to locate a class), the Ice run time attempts to load the class using class loaders in the following order:
- current thread's class loader
- default class loader (that is, by calling
Class.forName) - system class loader
Note that an application must install value factories for any abstract Slice classes it might receive, regardless of whether the application also installs a custom class loader.
To install a custom class loader, set the classLoader member of com.zeroc.Ice.InitializationData prior to creating a communicator:
Java
com.zeroc.Ice.InitializationData initData = new com.zeroc.Ice.InitializationData(); initData.classLoader = new MyClassLoader(); com.zeroc.Ice.Communicator communicator = com.zeroc.Ice.Util.initialize(args, initData);