Getting error while accessing the Map from Spring Controller to JSP using JSTL

Question

I have a spring controller in which I am returning a Map named "model"; model contains some set of values but importantly also contains an ArrayList. Now I am returning this Map to my JSP, while using JSTL in my JSP to fetch the ArrayList it throws error.

<c:forEach items="${model.result}" var="data" varStatus="status"> <!-- result is my ArrayList -->
    <c:out value="${data.url}" /> <!-- here url is data inside my result arraylist -->
</c:forEach>

The error generated is:

root cause 

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext.getELContext()Ljavax/el/ELContext;
    at javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.core.LoopTagSupport.unExposeVariables(LoopTagSupport.java:587)
    at javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.core.LoopTagSupport.doFinally(LoopTagSupport.java:323)
    at jsp_servlet._jsp.__searchsuccess._jsp__tag3(__searchsuccess.java:294)
    at jsp_servlet._jsp.__searchsuccess._jspService(__searchsuccess.java:137)
    at weblogic.servlet.jsp.JspBase.service(JspBase.java:34)

It works fine on Tomcat Server but when I deploy it on Weblogic(9.2) server it gives the error. My classpath entries are:

<classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.web.container"/>
    <classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.module.container"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/commons-fileupload-1.1.1.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/commons-io-1.2.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate-validator-4.0.2.GA.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.14.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-api-1.5.6.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.5.6.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-asm-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-beans-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-context-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-expression-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-web-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring-webmvc-3.0.3.RELEASE.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/validation-api-1.0.0.GA.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.9.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/servlet-2.3.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="con" path="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER/org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType/jre6">
        <attributes>
            <attribute name="owner.project.facets" value="jst.java"/>
        </attributes>
    </classpathentry>
    <classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/jstl-1.2.jar"/>
    <classpathentry kind="output" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/classes"/>

Update: I have removed the jstl-1.2.jar and now I get a compilation error:

searchsuccess.jsp:1:5: No tag library could be found with this URI. Possible causes could be that the URI is incorrect, or that there were errors during pa
rsing of the .tld file.
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
    ^----^
searchsuccess.jsp:1:5: No tag library could be found with this URI. Possible causes could be that the URI is incorrect, or that there were errors during pa
rsing of the .tld file.
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
    ^----^

        at weblogic.servlet.jsp.JavelinxJSPStub.compilePage(JavelinxJSPStub.java:298)
        at weblogic.servlet.jsp.JspStub.prepareServlet(JspStub.java:200)
        at weblogic.servlet.jsp.JspStub.prepareServlet(JspStub.java:164)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:235)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.onAddToMapException(ServletStubImpl.java:394)

Also, i saw somewhere.... not to use jsp-api.jar but it is not the case for me as i am not having any jsp-api.jar in my web app.. :P — GOK

BalusC BalusC · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-01T18:42:26

As per the stacktrace,

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext.getELContext()Ljavax/el/ELContext;
    at javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.core.LoopTagSupport.unExposeVariables(LoopTagSupport.java:587)

the JSTL <c:forEach> tag is expecting the method PageContext#getELContext(). This method was introduced in JSP 2.1. This exception thus suggests that you are using JSTL 1.2, while your container doesn't support JSP 2.1 or that you have littered your runtime classpath with servletcontainer specific JSP libraries of a container which doesn't support JSP 2.1. The runtime classpath covers among others the webapp's /WEB-INF/lib folder and Java's JRE/lib and JRE/lib/ext folders .

You should never put servletcontainer specific libraries in those folders, such as jsp-api.jar, servlet-api.jar, el-api.jar, j2ee.jar, javaee.jar, etc..etc.. Those files which you usually see in /lib folder of the servletcontainer itself. E.g. Tomcat/lib. It makes your webapp unportable to the target servletcontainer. The target servletcontainer where you're running this webapp has those libraries already. If you did this to overcome compilation errors on JSP/Servlet packages, then you should have solved it differently. See also How do I import the javax.servlet API in my Eclipse project?

Update: as per your update, you're using Weblogic 9.2 which is a Servlet 2.4 / JSP 2.0 container. It does not support JSP 2.1 / JSTL 1.2 at all. You need to remove the JSTL 1.2 library. If I am not mistaken, Weblogic ships with JSTL 1.1 already. Otherwise you need to include it in the classpath (the /WEB-INF/lib folder) yourself. You can find a JSTL 1.1 download link in our JSTL wiki page.

Getting error while accessing the Map from Spring Controller to JSP using JSTL

2 Answers