[Arkham_c]

I've used Velocity templates many times in the past with great success. However, I am trying for the first time to use it with Tomcat (jakarta-tomcat-5.0.19) or WebLogic (8.1) with Velocity 1.4 and am having an odd problem. My servlet is the simple servlet_example1 that comes with Velocity. I installed it as suggested, created the web.xml file, and redeployed. I get this error both in WebLogic and in Tomcat:

Code:
WebLogic: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/http/HttpServlet.

Tomcat: 2004-04-21 13:56:09 StandardWrapperValve[VelocityExample]: Allocate
exception for servlet VelocityExamplejavax.servlet.ServletException: Error allocating a 
servlet instance
----- Root Cause -----
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/http/HttpServlet
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:537)

As you can see, the message is essentially the same, so it must be something I am doing wrong (or something wrong in the example).

Here is my web.xml:

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<!DOCTYPE web-app
    PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
    "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">

<web-app>
    <display-name>Velocity Sample</display-name>
    <description>
        Sample Velocity Template Code
    </description>
    
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>VelocityExample</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>VelocityExample</servlet-class>
    </servlet>
    
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>VelocityExample</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/velocity</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

The class file is in WEB-INF/classes/ and is named VelocityExample.class. The java source for that file is:

Code:
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Properties;

import javax.servlet.ServletConfig;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.velocity.Template;
import org.apache.velocity.app.Velocity;
import org.apache.velocity.context.Context;
import org.apache.velocity.exception.ParseErrorException;
import org.apache.velocity.exception.ResourceNotFoundException;
import org.apache.velocity.servlet.VelocityServlet;

public class VelocityExample extends VelocityServlet
{
    protected Properties loadConfiguration(ServletConfig config)
    throws IOException, FileNotFoundException
    {
        Properties p = new Properties();

        String path = config.getServletContext().getRealPath("/");
        if (path == null)
        {
            System.out
                    .println(" SampleServlet.loadConfiguration() : unable to "
                    + "get the current webapp root.  Using '/'. Please fix.");
            path = "/";
        }
        p.setProperty(Velocity.FILE_RESOURCE_LOADER_PATH, path);

        p.setProperty("runtime.log", path + "velocity.log");
        return p;
    }

    public Template handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, 
    HttpServletResponse response, Context context)
    {
        String currentDate = new Date().toString();
        context.put("currentDate", currentDate);
        Template outty = null;
        try
        {
            outty = getTemplate("velocity_example.vm");
        }
        catch (ParseErrorException pee)
        {
            System.out.println("SampleServlet : parse error for template "
                    + pee);
        }
        catch (ResourceNotFoundException rnfe)
        {
            System.out.println("SampleServlet : template not found " + rnfe);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            System.out.println("Error " + e);
        }
        return outty;
    }
}

Anyone see where the problem is?

[itai195]

I'm not sure, I've never used Velocity with Tomcat. Do you have servlet.jar in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib?

BTW, driving people crazy is what Tomcat does best

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by itai195:
I'm not sure, I've never used Velocity with Tomcat. Do you have servlet.jar in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib?

There is a $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib/servlet-api.jar which contains the requisite class:

Code:
[dshaw@flybook /Library/tomcat/common/lib] jar -tvf servlet-api.jar | grep HttpServlet
  7738 Fri Feb 13 21:36:52 EST 2004 javax/servlet/http/HttpServlet.class

The thing is, it happens in WebLogic as well, which uses its own set of jar files for the servlet API. I am wondering if there is a problem with Velocity 1.4 (which is pretty new).

[Arkham_c]

I should also mention that a regular servlet that inherits from HttpServlet is working fine in the same installation. So it's not as simple as that Tomcat can't find the class.

[itai195]

Weird, it definitely looks like a classpath issue from the errors though. Where is the velocity-dep.jar file located?

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by itai195:
Weird, it definitely looks like a classpath issue from the errors though. Where is the velocity-dep.jar file located?

Inside my app/WEB-INF/lib folder. That's where it is supposed to go according to the standard. I tried it in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib too but it didn't make a difference.