Hi all, I apologize for being completely off-topic (this question has nothing to do with Tomcat), but I thought there may be some guys here that are experts in class loading and are able to answer my question.
You probably know the method java.lang.Class.forName(String name) which returns a class object from the given name. The JavaDoc (Java 7) of this method says: Returns the Class object associated with the class or interface with the given string name. Invoking this method is equivalent to: Class.forName(className, true, currentLoader) where currentLoader denotes the defining class loader of the current class. While this description may be a bit ambiguous about what "current class" means here, the JavaDoc of Class.forName(String name, boolean initialize, ClassLoader loader) makes it clearer by stating: For example, in an instance method the expression: Class.forName("Foo") is equivalent to: Class.forName("Foo", true, this.getClass().getClassLoader()) So, shouldn't this mean that I get the same result/behavior when writing this code: public void doSomething() throws ClassNotFoundException { Class<?> clazz = Class.forName("foo.Bar"); // do something... } Instead of this one: public void doSomething() throws ClassNotFoundException { Class<?> clazz = Class.forName("foo.Bar", true, this.getClass().getClassLoader()); // do something... } or did I misunderstand something? Thanks! Regards, Konstantin Preißer --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org