Java web application in a Servlet container vs. standalone

Question

What are the advantages of building a small Java web app to run in a Servlet container (like Tomcat) vs. building a standalone Java app with a built-in web server and runnin

Answer 1

if you are having issues with your hot deploy, most likely you aren't cleaning up your external connections or other resources. To handle this, usually you want to implement a listener that will let you know when something is started or stopped.

you should probably in your wars implement something like this (tomcat 6):

public class MyTomcatInitCleanupListener implements ServletContextListener
{
    @Override
    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent arg0)
    {
        super.contextInitialized(arg0);
    }

    @Override
    public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent arg0)
    {
        super.contextDestroyed(arg0);
    }
}

for tomcat 7+, you can google "tomcat lifecycle listener"