Where is the "work" directory located for a Tomcat instance running in Eclipse?

Question

In Eclipse you can configure numerous servers to run inside the IDE, including Tomcat. Depending on your Tomcat configuration, at some point in the life cycle of a webapp your JSP files will get compiled into servlets. These new servlet .class files are stored in the %TOMCAT_HOME%/work directory along with the .java intermediate file created from the JSP. This .java file is very helpful when your JSPs throw exceptions and cite a line number corresponding to the .java and not the .jsp

Update: On my environment (Windows), it is located here:

C:/Documents and Settings/%USER%/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.wst.server.core/tmp0/work

Perhaps to answer more completely somebody could post the location for *nix environments.

Answer 1

If you're using the Tomcat Maven Plugin in Eclipse, then your Tomcat related files would be in <project folder>/target/tomcat instead, including the tomcat work folder at <project folder>/target/tomcat/work, and you can descend from there to find your jsp .java files, etc.

(I know this may not apply to everyone, but since Tomcat Maven Plugin is a popular way to develop with tomcat and using maven to manage dependencies and help with the build process, I hope this info may be helpful for some people).

Answer 2

1. On Windows, the easiest way to go to your Eclipse's Tomcat deployment location is to just right-click on the Tomcat instance in the Servers view and click "Browse Deployment Location..."

   You should see Eclipse neatly opening a Windows explorer taking you to the exact location. In my case it takes me to:

   C:\eclipse4.3.2-jee-kepler-SR2-win32\workspaces\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp1\wtpwebapps

   From there, you can easily browse to the "work" directory as shown below.

   If you follow this, you never have to remember the location!

   Eclipse Servers View:

   
   

   Windows Explorer Opens:

   

   Windows Explorer (click on address bar to reveal full path):

   

2. On Amazon EC2 Linux (this has nothing to do with Eclipse however), the Tomcat work directory is at /var/cache/tomcat7/work

   [ec2-user@ip-172-31-xx-xx ~]$ uname -a
   Linux ip-172-31-xx-xx 4.1.10-17.31.amzn1.x86_64 #1 SMP Sat Oct 24 01:31:37 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
   
   [root@ip-172-31-xx-xx] /usr/share/tomcat7 $ ls -l
   total 4
   drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 Jan  5 15:18 bin
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root tomcat   12 Jan  5 15:18 conf -> /etc/tomcat7
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root tomcat   23 Jan  5 15:18 lib -> /usr/share/java/tomcat7
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root tomcat   16 Jan  5 15:18 logs -> /var/log/tomcat7
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root tomcat   23 Jan  5 15:18 temp -> /var/cache/tomcat7/temp
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root tomcat   24 Jan  5 15:18 webapps -> /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root tomcat   23 Jan  5 15:18 work -> /var/cache/tomcat7/work
   
   [root@ip-172-31-xx-xx] /var/cache/tomcat7/work/Catalina/localhost/init/org/apache/jsp $ ls -la
   total 180
   drwxr-xr-x 2 tomcat tomcat  4096 Jan  6 06:37 .
   drwxr-xr-x 3 tomcat tomcat  4096 Jan  6 06:37 ..
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat 54172 Aug 17  2012 index_jsp.class
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat  2106 Jan  6 06:37 index_jsp$FileComp.class
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat  1034 Jan  6 06:37 index_jsp$FileInfo.class
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat  6460 Jan  6 06:37 index_jsp$HttpMultiPartParser.class
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat 89445 Aug 17  2012 index_jsp.java
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat  2210 Jan  6 06:37 index_jsp$UplInfo.class
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat  1208 Jan  6 06:37 index_jsp$UploadMonitor.class
   -rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat  1184 Jan  6 06:37 index_jsp$Writer2Stream.class
   

Answer 3

You will find it in

projectworkspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.wst.server.core/tmp0

This is the default place where Eclipse 3.4 publishes the project. However, this can be changed by changing the settings in your 'Server' view.

Answer 4

The easiest way is most likely to ask a compiled JSP page about the source of the byte code.

From http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.lang/ClassOrigin.html:

// Get the location of this class
Class cls = this.getClass();
ProtectionDomain pDomain = cls.getProtectionDomain();
CodeSource cSource = pDomain.getCodeSource();
URL loc = cSource.getLocation();  // file:/c:/almanac14/examples/

Hopefully this helps. What is it you want to do?

Answer 5

Go to "Servers" window -> double click on your tomcat instance -> clik "Open launch configuration" -> go to "Arguments" tab.

Look for variable definition like this:

-Dcatalina.base="/Users/dirtyaffairs/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.wst.server.core/tmp0"

Answer 6

You can change it by setting scratchDir parameter in web.xml configuration of your server (in Servers project, not in your application web.xml!).

Answer 7

I assume it would be the same location relative to your workspace.