Visibility of classes in a web-app to dependent modules

Issue

• We have been having some problems with class loading via Spring.So the purpose of this ticket is for me to understand how class visibility between a deployed application and its modules works. I've read quite a bit of documentation but I'm still unclear exactly how it work so would appreciate some more detail.

• This is in the context of WAR applications, not EARs

• Let's say a web-app deployed as a WAR file which has a dependency on Module A, which in turn has a dependency on module B (i.e app -> A -> B) . There is no declared dependency in my app for Module B.

• It seems that : The code in app will be able to access classes in module A - the code in Module A will be able to access classes on apps WEB-INF/classes. We have proved this already by the fact that Spring module can dependency injection to a CXF application using the instructions here How do I configure CXF via Spring in EAP 6?. So,

  • Will the code in my app be able to access classes (or other assets on the class path) in module 'B' or will module B need to be declared as an explicit dependency in the app
  • will the code in Module 'B' have any visibility of classes (or other assets on the classpath) within my application's web-inf classes structure. This is particularly relevant if it uses something along the lines of this.getClass().getClassLoader()) to load something that's on the classpath in web app

• Is there a way we can indicate to JBoss that all required modules for a deployment are to be loaded into the same class loader as the deployment itself , so that any cross-dependencies are resolved within a single class loader ?

• So, any documentation regarding 'best practice' for Spring in JBoss EAP 6 , particularly in the context of CXF applications ? Doing it via application context seems to be working (so far) but doesn't feel very elegant.