Delegation

Note that the class loader hierarchy is not a Java inheritance hierarchy, but a delegation hierarchy. In the delegation design, a class loader delegates class loading to its parent before attempting to load a class itself. If the parent class loader cannot load a class, the class loader attempts to load the class itself. In effect, a class loader is responsible for loading only the classes not available to the parent. Classes loaded by a class loader higher in the hierarchy cannot refer to classes available lower in the hierarchy.

The Java Servlet specification recommends that a web module's class loader look in the local class loader before delegating to its parent. You can make this class loader follow the delegation inversion model in the Servlet specification by setting delegate="false" in the class-loader element of the sun-web.xml file. It is safe to do this only for a web module that does not interact with any other modules. For details, see class-loader in Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Application Deployment Guide.

The default value is delegate="true", which causes a web module's class loader to delegate in the same manner as the other class loaders. You must use delegate="true" for a web application that accesses EJB components or that acts as a web service client or endpoint. For details about sun-web.xml, see Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Application Deployment Guide.

For a number of packages, including java.* and javax.*, symbol resolution is always delegated to the parent class loader regardless of the delegate setting. This prevents applications from overriding core Java runtime classes or changing the API versions of specifications that are part of the Java EE platform.