7.3 Implementation Model for an "Activatable" Remote Object

In order to make a remote object that can be accessed via an activation identifier over time, a developer needs to:

• register an activation descriptor for the remote object, and
• include a special constructor in the object's class that the RMI system calls when it constructs/activates the activatable object.

An activation descriptor (ActivationDesc) can be registered in one of several ways:

• via a call to the static register method of the class Activatable, or
• by creating an "activatable" object via the first constructor of the Activatable class, or
• by exporting an "activatable" object explicitly via Activatable's first exportObject method that takes an ActivationDesc, the Remote object implementation and a port number as arguments.

For a specific object, only one of the above methods should be used to register the object for activation. See the section below on "Constructing an Activatable Remote Object" for examples on how to implement activatable objects.