US Patent 6915511 Dynamic class reloading mechanism

A system and method for providing dynamic class reloading using a modular, pluggable and maintainable class loader is described. Each application in an application server (or alternatively in any implementation) may include a dynamic class loader module. The class loader module may include a hierarchical stack of class loaders. Each module in the application may be associated with its own class loader. Each class loader may be responsible for loading one or more classes. When a class is changed, the changed class may be detected by the class loader module. Any notification for a class change may come to the class loader controller so that the concerned class loader can be replaced. The class loaders for all classes that depend on the changed class may also be replaced. The replaced class loaders may then reload the affected classes.