I've successfully been using hot swap to update static resources like jsps and .js files, as well as some types of code changes in my class files. For example, adding a new command into an existing method or whatever seems to be working (although after some time it too fails for some reason and I have to restart the whole server). The question is, is it possible to hot swap classes with any type of change (except changing the class name or something like that)? More specifically I'm interested in being able to hot swap while changing, adding and renaming methods. I'm not really proficient with how the JVM works and how it reads the compiled classes so it might be impossible thus requiring me to redeploy the whole .war but I'm not sure. Is there a specific configuration that allows me to do that on debug?
After checking the JRebel website and its features, it seems that classic JVM Hot Swap only allows for changes in method bodies which I'm already able to do so it seems that the classic freeware approach can't go further.