First off, the docs make it sounds like paths are relative to your docroot, which is why I tried ".". Paths [i]are[/i] docroot relative in <sun-web-app>/<class-loader>'s extra-class-path attribute.
Second, it's clear libraries won't work here for a couple of reasons. I need to add the docroot directory itself as a classloader entry, not a jar. I need this to be added to the web app classloader, not a parent thereof. The classes in docroot reference classes in WEB-INF/lib/*.jar (and vice versa) -- they have to be loaded by the same classloader.
Why libraries should allow jars and not directories is beyond me -- I would have still expected it to add my "codebase" directory to the classloader when I gave the full path. In the end, however, this is irrelevant since the libraries feature inserts a separate classloader rather than a classloader entry.
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