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/WEB-INF/classes vs /WEB-INF/lib

Asked 2011-01-19T18:44:09.717
21

I'd like to package my Java EE6 web classes (beans, filters, servlets) into jar and place it into /WEB-INF/lib/ directory along with other utility jars and abandon /WEB-INF/classes/ directory totally.

Are there any substantial differences between the two in terms of classloading, acessing application context, etc?

Thanks.

PS: Whenever googling any of java specs I'm always redirected to Oracle documentation index which is dozen clicks away from original url. Anyone knows what's happening there?

java web-applications jakarta-ee
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2 Answers

23

I'd go for /WEB-INF/classes. It allows you to run your application in debug mode and hot-swap classes on change. If you package everything as a jar, you'd have to repackage and redeploy the app every time you change a class.

answered 2011-01-19T18:52:00.067
18

Well, shortly: Imagine you have class org.example.Test.class, if you put it into jar and in WEB-INF/lib/ directory, and copy the same class into WEB-INF/classes/ then classloader of that application will use last one (from WEB-INF/classes/).

Sometimes you can use it as advantage - I have a library, and it has a bug... I look for source of that class (where bug is; I miss the part of how I know that bug is in that class, that's another story), I add that class to the project with fixed code, and it is compiled into WEB-INF/classes/ while library still exist in WEB-INF/lib/. Fixed class will be used until library will be fixed.

answered 2011-01-19T18:54:59.107

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