title: How can I get the class-loader sequencing of Tomcat 8 to behave exactly like Tomcat 6?
body: <p>For a Java Web Application:</p>
  
  <p>From <a href="https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/class-loader-howto.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/class-loader-howto.html</a>
  the default class-loader sequence for <strong>Tomcat 6</strong> is:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Bootstrap classes of your JVM </li>
  <li>System class loader classes </li>
  <li>/WEB-INF/classes of your web application </li>
  <li>/WEB-INF/lib/*.jar of your web application </li>
  <li>Common class loader classes (annotations, catalina jars etc.)</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>From <a href="https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/class-loader-howto.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/class-loader-howto.html</a>
  the default class-loader sequence for <strong>Tomcat 8</strong> is:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Bootstrap classes of your JVM </li>
  <li>/WEB-INF/classes of your web application </li>
  <li>/WEB-INF/lib/*.jar of your web application </li>
  <li>System class loader classes </li>
  <li>Common class loader classes (annotations, catalina jars etc.)</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>As you can see, the load order is different. </p>
  
  <p>Now in Tomcat 8 (Context.xml or Server.xml), I can set</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Loader delegate="true" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>to change the Tomcat 8 class-loader sequence to:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Bootstrap classes of your JVM </li>
  <li>System class loader classes </li>
  <li>Common class loader classes (annotations, catalina jars etc.)</li>
  <li>/WEB-INF/classes of your web application </li>
  <li>/WEB-INF/lib/*.jar of your web application </li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>As you can see, this sequence is quite a bit closer to Tomcat 6, though not 100% same.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way in Tomcat 8 Server to make the class-loader sequence, same as Tomcat 6? Is <strong>delegate="true"</strong> the closest we can get?</p>