Modifying the Application

Since the Java Web Services Developer Pack is intended for experimentation, it supports iterative development. Whenever you make a change to an application, you must redeploy and reload the application. The tasks we defined in the build.xml file make it simple to deploy changes to both the JavaBeans component and the JSP page.

In the targets.xml file, we have included targets for the following Ant tasks:

ant list--use this task to view a list of all applications currently available on Tomcat.

ant install--use this task to copy the build directory to <JWSDP_HOME>/webapps and notify Tomcat that the new application is available. The install task can reference either an unpacked directory or a WAR file.

ant reload--use this task to update an application in the server when the application was initially installed using the Ant install task.

ant remove--use this task to take an installed Web application out of service.

ant deploy--use this task to permanently deploy a context to Tomcat while Tomcat is running. The deploy task requires a WAR.

ant undeploy-- use this task to take a deployed application out of service.

These targets use the Tomcat Web Application Manager, which is the manager Web application. You can use the Ant tasks to access the Tomcat Web Application Manager functionality, or you can access the tool directly. For example, to use the list task in the Tomcat Server Manager Tool, run the Manager Application in a browser:

You will be prompted for a user name and password. This can be the user name/password combination that you set up during Java WSDP installation because it will have the role name of manager associated with it, or it can be a user name and password combination that you've set up subsequent to installation as long as it has been assigned the role of manager. If you've forgotten the user name/password combination that you set up during installation, you can look it up in <JWSDP_HOME>/conf/tomcat-users.xml, which can be viewed with any text editor. For more information on using the Tomcat Web Application Manager, read Appendix B.

Modifying a JavaBeans Component

If you want to make changes to the JavaBeans component, you change the source code, recompile it, and reload the application onto Tomcat. When using the Tomcat manager Web application, you do not need to stop and restart Tomcat in order to update an application in the server. For example, suppose that you want to change the exchange rate in the yenRate property of the ConverterBean component:

Edit ConverterBean.java in the source directory.

Recompile ConverterBean.java by typing ant build.

Reinstall the ConverterBean component by typing ant reload.

Reload the JSP page in the Web browser.

Modifying the Web Client

If you want to make changes to a JSP page, you change the source code and redeploy the application. When using the Tomcat manager Web application, you do not need to stop and restart Tomcat in order to reinstall the changed Web client. For example, suppose you wanted to modify a font or add additional descriptive text to the JSP page. To modify the Web client: