Can Eclipse automatically refresh Tomcat app?

I use Eclipse Indigo (EE) to build applications in Java framework Vaadin, using Tomcat 7.0 server. After changes in code I wont see result in a browser, so I need to click option "Clean Tomcat Work Direc开发者_JS百科tory.." and wait until Tomcat stop and start a server.

Otherwise, when I refresh app page, I don't see any changes. Even when I restart server (and when eclipse automatically restart it when I save changes), without cleaning tomcat directory.

Option "Automatically publish when resources change" is enabled.

Is any faster way to do that? or can I automate that process?

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Additionally to the answer of Kowser, it is possible do hot code changes when running tomcat in debug mode.

Otherwise you could investigate in JRebel

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In your "Modules" tab of your Tomcat, you hace to clic on 'Edit' and uncheck the 'Auto reloading enables' option.

With that, several changes won't need a restart (as long as you start your server in debug mode).

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If you setup your project to use ant for building and deploying, you can simply add Ant builder to your project Builders to run your ant build and deploy targets every time after you have saved a file. Then provided that tomcat is configured to support auto-deploy, this should achieve what you want, with two caveats:

1. If your project takes more than a few seconds to build, building after every save is not practical.
2. You may run out of memory for the tomcat instance if the same app is deployed to it repeatedly for a number of times. This can happen if tomcat is somehow unable to recover all the memory from undeployed resources.

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It might be possible. But your setup is a bit different from what I use. I am just using tomcat+eclipse to do Servlet development using Velocity and Torque.

The following works for me where changes are visible in the browser as soon as I save in eclipse.

I assume that you have a project directory such as

apache-tomcat-7.0.11/webapps/$YOU_PROJECT/WEB-INF/classes/

Create a symbolic link with ln -s from your eclipse project directory and to the classes directory in WEB-INF.

Then configure eclipse to write all .class files to this directory. (Done by right clicking on the project in Eclipse and choosing Properties and then Java build path.

In your $tomcat/conf/context.xml config file first tag should be:

<Context allowLinking="true" reloadable="true">

Also add the following as a child to if it is not already there.

<WatchedResource>WEB-INF/web.xml</WatchedResource>

That is what I have done, but I am not sure it works with your EE tools.

ps: This solution assumes that you are using linux/unix. I don't know if it works with windows. The major problem is that eclipse can't write class files outside the project directory (Which is why that symlink is required).

btw: Tomcat may(Depending on class loader, used .jar files and other complicated details) leak a lot of memory when automatic reload is enabled so you may want to increase the allowed memory(Mostly permgen) to prevent out of memmory exceptions from tomcat.

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I know this has been asked and answered very long ago. But use this info if it is helpful to anyone of you. I use Eclipse Kepler and configured Tomcat 7 server inside eclipse. I don't have to do any other configuration but to just uncheck Update context paths check box. That is all. Leave other setting as default.

In this way, changes to the resources files (xhtml pages, css files etc.) as well as the java source code files show up in the browser. Only for class files the web application would be redeployed (no server restart auto as well as manual required).

Location of Update context paths: Double click on the tomcat server under Server tab. Under Publishing tab you would find this Update context paths check box.

Absolutely no other change needs to be done for the auto publishing. This works both in normal and debug mode of tomcat.

Screen shot from my eclipse below:

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No, there is no other way.

You will notice immediate changes only while updating a JSP/HTML/etc.... Classes will not be loaded/refreshed automatically. It will be contradictory to change a loaded/instantiated class when server is live, isn't it? At least it should not be possible.

It's better to perform Unit Test while developing something. It can help you to reduce the amount of annoying server restarts.