Neat trick for Unix shell users..

[Ben Souther]

If you code for Tomcat as I do sans-IDE, you might find this tip useful.

Even with the "reloadable" attribute set to true, it is often necessary to manually reload an application (web.xml changes, context scope vars etc..) running in Tomcat.
The fastest way to do this (CPU wise) is with the Tomcat manager application.
The problem is that this involves having a browser open and on that page or else reaching for the mouse (a loathsome chore).

wget to the rescue!

Like most command line junkies I have a script that I use to set up my environment for each project (classpath etc..).

By creating an alias that calls wget (a command line tool for pulling HTTP content from cron scripts for mirroring websites), pointed to the manager app, I've made it easy to quickly reload the app I'm working on without leaving the window I'm in.

Here is the command:

alias reload='wget -o /dev/null -O /dev/null --http-user=myUser --http-passwd=myPasswd <a href="http://localhost:8080/manager/html/reload?path=/myContext'" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://localhost:8080/manager/html/reload?path=/myContext'</a>

[Sonny Gill]

Good tip Ben, Thanks.