JRebel installation and integration

Installation instructions for JRebel in Eclipse IDE are located here. Once installed, the provided jrebel.lic file should be registered by using JRebel plugin functionality from within the Eclipse IDE by switching to the JRebel Configuration perspective and specifying the file in tabsheet Overview. Then, select those projects that should be enhanced by JRebel in tabsheet Projects.

Individual Run Configurations need to have jrebe.jar specified as a javaagent in order to recompiled files to be replaced at runtime. For this, simply edit relevant run configurations by adding the -javaagent JVM parameter in addition to -Djava.system.class.loader. The jrebel.jar file can be located in the Eclipse installation directory after JRebel plugin installation. For example,

-javaagent:/[path]/Eclipse/plugins/org.zeroturnaround.eclipse.embedder_6.3.0.RELEASE/jrebel/jrebel.jar

It might be of interest to note that after installing the JRebel plugin, Run Configuration contains tabsheet JRebel where JRebel integration with the selected configuration could allegedly be turned off/on without specifying the javaagent. However, this options did not work in case of TG-based applications. Therefore, the integration options on that tabsheet should be turned off and the javaagent option used instead.

Running the application with JRebel integration reloads any modified and recompiled classes, which ensures that any new instances of those classes represent the latest changes without the need to restart the application.