20.2 Overview of Steps to Create a Data Control Adapter

To create data control adapters:

1. Create classes to extend abstract classes and implement interfaces in the adapter framework. These classes are used during design time and runtime. You have to create three classes as described in these sections:

   • Section 20.3, "Implement the Abstract Adapter Class"

   • Section 20.4, "Implement the Data Control Definition Class"

   • Section 20.5, "Implement the Data Control Class"

   You can also create additional classes as required by your adapter. For the simple CSV adapter, it includes two additional classes: CSVHandler and CSVParser. These classes are shown in Section 20.6, "Create any Necessary Supporting Classes".

2. Create a definition file, adapter-definition.xml, to register your adapter with ADF. This file contains the class name of your adapter implementation and references the libraries that your adapter needs to run. See Section 20.7, "Create an XML File to Define Your Adapter".

3. Install your data control adapter in JDeveloper by packaging your class files and the definition file in a JAR file and placing the JAR file in JDeveloper's classpath. See Section 20.9, "Package and Deploy Your Adapter to JDeveloper".

Invoking Your Adapter

After installing your data control adapter in JDeveloper, you can invoke it by right-clicking a node in JDeveloper that your data control adapter supports and selecting "Create Data Control" from the context menu. The data control adapter declares the node types that it supports in its adapter-definition.xml configuration file (described in Section 20.7, "Create an XML File to Define Your Adapter").

For example, if your adapter supports database connection nodes, when you right-click on a database connection, then you can select Create Data Control from the context menu to invoke your adapter.

Note that this chapter does not cover how to create a wizard, or how to pass values from a wizard to your adapter.