Discussion of FAQ question on Cocoon resources

[Sandor Spruit <sa...@cs.uu.nl>]

[Referring to Cocoon 1.8.2 - the question at this URL:
http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faqs.html#faq-resourcenotfound
- trying to figure out *exactly* what the problem is]

Hi folks,

I've been trying to run Cocoon in its own context on Tomcat 3.2.1,
with its own libs and stuff tucked away neatly under WEB-INF (Some
collegues of mine would like to work with other xml software on the
same experimental Tomcat machine we have installed - that's why :)
The libraries have name and version clashes - Xerces, Xalan etc).
This set-up does not appear to be possible as yet - something to do
with some resource files stored within Jar files; classloaders etc.

I've been working with custom classloaders myself, and would like to
get some confirmation regarding the exact nature of the problem. That
is: before even considering the idea of working out a solution ;)

In short: I think the problem is that, either:

(a) Within Tomcat, the classloader responsible for loading stuff off a
    context's WEB-INF does not check the JAR files within WEB-INF tree
    for any resources they may contain (there has to be some custom
    classloader in Tomcat, because it would otherwise not be able to
    find classes in places other than the directories/JARs added to
    the VM's classpath before the start-up;

(b) The Cocoon code does not always call upon the right classloader to
    get to its resource files;

So, the problem could be in Cocoon or Tomcat. I can think of ways to
resolve this issue, but where should I start looking ? :)

Cheers,
Sandor

-- 
ir A.G.L. Spruit, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Institute of information and computing sciences
"There is a bit of magic in everything, and then some
loss to even things out" (from: Lou Reed, "Magic and Loss")