How to auto reload app engine dev server?

Question

Im following the tutorial on the App Engine website for 'Google Cloud Endpoints' in Java. Everything works fine and I can run the development server using mvn appengine:devserver. The problem is that when I make any changes to a file (for example, any java file) the dev server doesnt automatically recompile. I need to ctrl-c to kill the dev server and restart it for every code change I make.

Is there a way to have maven automatically detect changes to any files in my project and have it automatically rebuild and restart the dev server?

Answer 1

Unfortunately no. If you want this behavior on your dev server, you need to use Python.

I run in the same issue and there is no real workaround provided by the App Engine to help you doing this.

From the "Using The Google plugin for Eclipse":

With Eclipse, you can leave the server running in the debugger while you make changes to source code, JSPs, static files and appengine-web.xml. When you save changes to source code, Eclipse compiles the class automatically, then attempts to insert it into the running web server dynamically. In most cases, you can simply reload the page in your browser to test the new version of the code. Changes to JSPs, static files and appengine-web.xml are recognized by the development server automatically, and also take effect without restarting the server. If you change web.xml or other configuration files, you must stop and start the server for the changes to take effect.

(https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/java/tools/eclipse#Running_the_Project)

There is NOTHING comparable in Java (link from "The Java Development Server") (https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/java/tools/devserver)