Can I hot-deploy apps into Tomcat?

Question

I'm wondering is it possible to "hot develop" spring application.

For example. In Play framework when I change something in template or even controller or configuration I don't need to republish the application or restart server. I just refresh the page.

Is this kind of quick and easy work is possible with spring framework ? Does it depend of server?

Answer 1

Spring itself doesn't tell much about redeployment and stuff, but in most cases you can reload your templates without restarting depending on your ViewResolver.

Furthermore in some environments (for example in OSGi) it is possible to hot-deploy classes, resources and nearly everything. Having a properly configured SpringSource Tool Suite and eg. Virgo WebServer it is possible to achieve hot deployment and as such you can reload the running classes as you save them.

Answer 2

If you want true hot (re)deployment you'll probably need to use something that modifies Java class-loading like JRebel.