Question

I’m trying to import org.apache.commons.fileupload.* but I am being told that it does not exist.

I am downloading this JAR: http://commons.apache.org/fileupload/

And placing it on the classpath. So what am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Most likely you’re thinking of %CLASSPATH% environment variable. You shouldn’t do that. The JAR file has to go in /WEB-INF/lib folder of the dynamic web application project. That folder is by default covered by the webapp’s classpath. A bit decent IDE (Eclipse, Netbeans, etc) will automagically add it to the Build Path whenever you drop a JAR file in that folder.

When you’re compiling using plain vanilla javac.exe in command console, then you have to specify it in the -cp argument.

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Update:
Assuming that you’re using Windows and are sitting in source root folder, here’s how javac.exe should look like:

javac -cp .;/path/to/tomcat/lib/*;/path/to/WEB-INF/lib/* com/example/Servlet.java

Note: the wildcard only works on JDK 1.6 or newer. Otherwise you’ve to specify all libraries separately.