Question

Here is my Resource element in context.xml ::

<Resource name="jdbc/myoracle" auth="Container"
              type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"
              url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:XE"
              username="hr" password="hr" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10"
              maxWait="-1"/> 

Here is my Resource reference in web.xml:

       <resource-ref>
            <description>Oracle Datasource</description>
            <res-ref-name>jdbc/myoracle</res-ref-name>
            <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
            <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
        </resource-ref>

I then use @Resource annotation in my code:

      @Resource(mappedName = "jdbc/myoracle")
        DataSource ds;

When I try to create connection object using getConnection() on ds, I get a null pointer exception during runtime:

    Oct 24, 2011 12:18:21 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve invoke
    INFO: java.lang.NullPointerException
        at jdbc.patientDaoImpl.get_patients(patientDaoImpl.java:248)
        at org.apache.jsp.index2_jsp._jspService(index2_jsp.java:92)
        at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
        at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:419)
        at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:390)
        at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:333)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:304)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
        at org.netbeans.modules.web.monitor.server.MonitorFilter.doFilter(MonitorFilter.java:393)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:223)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:164)
        at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:462)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:164)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:100)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:563)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:399)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:317)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:204)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:311)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

But if I lookup using initialContext the app works fine.

    Context initContext = new InitialContext();
    Context envContext  = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
    DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/myoracle");

Where am I going wrong?

Answer 1

Tomcat itself does not support @Resource injection. In other words, the servlet container does not recognize that annotation and can’t do anything with it. Manual lookup works, because the resource is defined properly.

You need some dependency-injection framework:

• spring
• CDI (part of the JavaEE6 web-profile)
• EJB (part of the JavaEE6 web-profile, not exactly a “DI framework”)