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<head><title>GNU Classpath - java.rmi.activation</title></head>

<body>
In the previous Classpath releases, an instance of a UnicastRemoteObject
could be accessed from a server that:
<ul>
<li>has created an instance of that object<li>
<li>has been running <i>all<i> the time</li>
</ul>
<p>The the activation system allows to activate and execute the object
implementation on demand rather than running all time. If the activation
system is persistent, the server can be terminated and then restarted.
The clients, still holding remote references to the server side 
activatable objects, will activate those objects again. The server side
objects will be reinstantiated (activated) during the first call of any
remote method of such object.
</p><p>
The RMI client code for activatable objects is no different than the code for 
accessing non-activatable remote objects. Activation is a server-side feature.
</p><p>
In order for an object to be activated, the "activatable" object class 
(independently if it extends the {@link Activatable} class or not) defines a 
special public constructor that takes two arguments, its activation identifier 
({@link ActivationID}) and its activation data ({@link java.rmi.MarshalledObject}), 
supplied in the activation descriptor used during registration. When an 
activation group activates a remote object, it constructs the object via 
this special constructor. The remote object implementation may use the 
activation data to initialize itself in a needed manner. The remote object may
also retain its activation identifier, so that it can inform the activation 
group when it becomes inactive (via a call to the Activatable.inactive method).
</p>
@author Audrius Meskauskas (audriusa@bioinformatics.org) (from empty)
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