You can use the Eclipse publishing functionality to copy files from an AppServer project module in the Workspace environment to a local or remote server. This allows the server to find and use them as you test your application code.
The module definition specifies which objects must be published. For an AppServer project module, the objects come from the set of directories defined by the module. Therefore, a publish action might proceed differently depending on the location of the AppServer and its publish directory.
Events that require publishing to the server
The following events require that you publish to the server:
Adding or changing a file in a module
Adding a directory or subdirectory to a module
Removing a file from a module
Renaming an existing directory in a module
Changing the server publish directory, which includes either changing from the working directory of the server to a specific directory or changing the selected publish directory to a different value
Modifying the build path or PROPATH of a module's project
Adding a module to a server
Removing a module from a server
Publishing to a local server
When you initiate a publish to a local server, the system can activate a script to copy the code from the project's directory. The script publishes only the code that has changed since the last publish event.
You can review the server status in the Servers view to see whether code has been published, or if there have been changes and a publish is required. For AppServers that reside on your local machine, the server need not be running for a publish to occur.
Note: If the publish directory points to a location in the workspace such as a project directory, the publish is not performed. This avoids a situation in which you might corrupt source code. In a case such as this, the publish of any modules to the server does not complete, and an error message informs you of this fact.
Publishing to a remote server
You can publish your AppServer code to a remote server by using OpenEdge Explorer (or OpenEdge Management if you have a license). You must configure the remote machine to work with the local installation of OpenEdge Explorer.
For AppServers that reside on a remote machine, the server need not be running for a publish to occur. If you select the option to compile on publish, however, the broker must be running so that source compilation can be done using the broker’s AVM.
When a file is removed from a module, the corresponding file must also be removed from the server. A file might have been removed from a module by either of the following actions:
The file or folder was a member of the module and was physically deleted.
A directory was removed from the module content definition.
In either case, when the module is next published to the server, the publish mechanism must make sure that the file is no longer present on the server. This applies to both source files and r-code.
You can set a preference to retain the removed module content in the server publish directory. (The default for this preference is to remove deleted files and folders.)
When a module is removed from the server, the publish mechanism must ensure that the module content is removed from the server. The removal of resources occurs on the next publish of the server (and could take some time if the module is large).
For additional information, see the details about publishing applications to the server in the Web Tools Platform User Guide.
Adding or changing a file in a module