Apache 2.2 localhost VirtualHosts problems - macos

Question

I am trying to setup my dev machine with virtual hosts so I can access my development projects with a simple url, like http:// project.dev/ rather that a whole http:// 127.0.0.1/dev/path/to/root/of/project/ type of url.
Now, I'm aware there are many tutorials and questions already answered about this, but after trying many of them, I feel like I'm running in circles here.
The problem is simple: after setting up my hosts file and my virtual hosts, any attempt to access a virtual hosts irremediably displays the content of my server DocumentRoot.
my hosts file:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 mydomain.dev
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
my httpd-vhosts.conf
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot /Users/pilot/Sites/
</Virtualhost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName mydomain.dev
DocumentRoot /Users/pilot/Sites/devel/vytamin/dev/
</VirtualHost>
I precise that the httpd-vhosts.conf file IS loaded in my httpd.conf and I do get a warning if I point the virtual host document root to a wrong folder.
I made a try setting the localhost virtual host to the following, without any success.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot /Users/pilot/Sites/devel
</Virtualhost>
The following URLS all display the DocumentRoot of my server defined in my httpd.conf file, and seem to ignore the DocumentRoot defined in my VirtualHosts.
http:// 127.0.0.1/
http:// localhost/
http:// mydomain.dev/
I'm running Apache2.2 on Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard, but not the one shipped with mac os. I compiled my own under /usr/local/apache2 and web sharing IS disabled
I can't see anything wrong with my set up so I hope the community will!
Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Ok, I found the problem!
The configuration above is perfectly fine, it was just that my apache was not restarting properly.
Neither apache_ctl graceful or apache_ctl restart was terminating all httpd processes I have running, therefore failing to reload properly the changes in my configuration files.
Once I killed the remaining processes and really restarted apache, it worked...
Solved, but I feel dumb to have found that!
Now I have a daemon situation to solve!