How to debug grails run-app loop
I recently had a problem where grails run-app would start the server, then immediately recompile 1 class, then restart… and repeat.
Google told me that the problem probably was an empty Java file in my project and to look in the ~/.grails/1.2-M4/projects/myproject/classes directory to see which file kept changing timestamp.
However, no files did that. The solution was to modify $GRAILS_HOME/scripts/_GrailsCompile.groovy and add listFiles:true to the compile target:
ant.groovyc(destdir:classesDirPath,
classpathref:classpathId,
encoding:"UTF-8",
listFiles:true,
compilerPaths.curry(classpathId, false))
And it turned out Google was right, I had a Java file with only the package specification in it.