Question

I am trying to add a new class to a pre-existing web application in Tomcat6.

The class is:

public class Hello {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
   System.out.println("HELLLLLLOOOOOOO");
  }
}

• I compiled it and put the class file in: <WEBAPP>/WEB-INF/classes
• Restart tomcat
  I called it from the jsp which works with other classes in folders in the classes directory:
  <%@ page import="Hello" %>

It fails saying:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP: An error occurred at line: 16 in the generated java file The import Hello cannot be resolved

What am I missing?

I have also tried adding it to the catalina common/lib directory, put it external to tomcat and edited the shared.loader property in catalina.properties.

Answer 1

Put it in a package.

package com.example;

And put it in classpath accordingly:

/WEB-INF/classes/com/example/Hello.class

Finally import it as follows:

<%@ page import="com.example.Hello" %>

Packageless classes are invisible/unimportable for classes inside a package. The JSP file itself is namely implicitly been converted to a servlet class inside a servletcontainer-specific package.