Question

Is there any way to setup Tomcat server so whenever I make changes to Java class or JSP page the change is visible on browser refresh.
I’m bored stopping and starting Tomcat. I want to configure Tomcat like the way WAMP works [where you can see the PHP code change upon browser refresh]

Answer 1

If it’s for development mode that’s ok. Don’t use it for production stuff.

• You don’t have to restart the server. You can restart the app through the Tomcat Manager.

• You can even do this directly as: http://[hostname]:[port]/manager/reload?path=%5B/path/to/your/webapp%5D

or

• Define your context as reloadable

Be careful: It is NOT recommended to place elements directly in the server.xml file
Check out the Tomcat configuration guide

For java classes: reloadable

Set to true if you want Catalina to monitor classes in /WEB-INF/classes/ and /WEB-INF/lib for changes, and automatically reload the web application if a change is detected. This feature is very useful during application development, but it requires significant runtime overhead and is not recommended for use on deployed production applications. You can use the Manager web application, however, to trigger reloads of deployed applications on demand.

NOTE – The value for this property will be inherited from the reloadable attribute you set on the surrounding Context component, and any value you explicitly set here will be replaced.
(http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/loader.html)

For JSP: development ($CATALINA_BASE/conf/web.xml)

development – Is Jasper used in development mode? If true, the frequency at which JSPs are checked for modification may be specified via the modificationTestInterval parameter.true or false, default true.

Hope this helps