Java Tip #4 - Endorsed Standards Override Mechanism

An endorsed standard is a Java(TM) API defined through a standards process other than the Java Community Process(SM). These standards might be revised between releases of the Java 2 platform. Sun defined the Endorsed Standards Override Mechanism (ESOM) to allow a developer to provide a newer version of an endorsed standard than those include in the Java 2 platform.

The classes that need to be overridden should be jarred up & placed in one or more directories specified by the java.endorsed.dirs System property. If unspecified, then the default location is

[java-home]\lib\endorsed - Microsoft Windows
[java-home]/lib/endorsed - Solaris or Linux

If more than one directory is specified, they must be separated by File.pathSeparatorChar.

Below is the list of packages as of 1.4 & 1.5 that can use the ESOM to provide newer implementations.

javax.rmi.CORBA

org.omg.CORBA

org.omg.CORBA.DynAnyPackage

org.omg.CORBA.ORBPackage

org.omg.CORBA.portable

org.omg.CORBA.TypeCodePackage

org.omg.CORBA_2_3

org.omg.CORBA_2_3.portable

org.omg.CosNaming

org.omg.CosNaming.NamingContextExtPackage

org.omg.CosNaming.NamingContextPackage

org.omg.Dynamic

org.omg.DynamicAny

org.omg.DynamicAny.DynAnyFactoryPackage

org.omg.DynamicAny.DynAnyPackage

org.omg.IOP

org.omg.IOP.CodecFactoryPackage

org.omg.IOP.CodecPackage

org.omg.Messaging

org.omg.PortableInterceptor

org.omg.PortableInterceptor.ORBInitInfoPackage

org.omg.PortableServer

org.omg.PortableServer.CurrentPackage

org.omg.PortableServer.POAManagerPackage

org.omg.PortableServer.POAPackage

org.omg.PortableServer.portable

org.omg.PortableServer.ServantLocatorPackage

org.omg.SendingContext

org.omg.stub.java.rmi

org.w3c.dom

org.xml.sax

org.xml.sax.ext

org.xml.sax.helpers