Original Text: Any web application archive file that does not have a corresponding directory of the same name (without the ".war" extension) will be automatically expanded, unless the unpackWARs property is set to false. If you redeploy an updated WAR file, be sure to delete the expanded directory when restarting Tomcat, so that the updated WAR file will be re-expanded (note that the auto deployer will automatically take care of this if it is enabled). Ambiguity: Does the auto-deployer take care of the reexpansion, or the deleting of the previously expanded directory? In practice, it seems to be the former (meaning you have to delete the dir, and autoDeploy will reexpand the new war for you), but this passage could also be interpretted as: autoDeploy will check the date of the war vs what is already expanded and re-expand as necessary (it doesn't). I recommend: "(note that the auto deployer will automatically expand the updated WAR file once the previously expanded directory is removed)."
Good suggestion, I've applied it, thank you.