> > If I'm not wrong Tomcat loads it classes in the following order: > > 1. bootstrap > > 2. classpath classes > > 3. webapps classes/libs > > 4. common libs > > 5. shared libs > > As I recall, the webapp classloader takes precedence over the system > classloader (the -cp path handler), but I'd have to check the code to be > sure. Also, on Tomcat 6, there is no shared lib directory, unless you have > modified conf/catalina.properties. > > > In which case I don't understand why my webapp complains > > that it can't find the class... > > Timing issues can cause things to be loaded in a different order; if the > class from Tomcat's lib or the system classpath gets loaded first, you will > not be able to cast references to its objects to the class in WEB-INF/lib > directory. This often results in the somewhat misleading NCDFE. > > I'm sorry, but I'm missing something here... What causes timing issues? How can a classloading order be changed from one minute to the other? I would suppose the classloading ritual is a serial process, instead of a parallel process. First A than B. And not; "let's start A and B at the same time and hope that A finishes first."
Can a clustering problem be at the root of this problem, and thus cause some kind of timing issue and load the classes in a different order? > So the Spring jars exist *only* in WEB-INF/lib? > > That I did not say :) I need will need to check that tomorrow. What I'm saying is that I don't think that any class in common/lib references to spring.
