How to install JSTL? The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core cannot be resolved

jsp servlets jstl
lukastymo picture lukastymo · Feb 8, 2011 · Viewed 376.9k times · Source

I don't know what I've done incorrectly, but I can't include JSTL. I have jstl-1.2.jar, but unfortunately I get exception: 

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed with this application
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.DefaultErrorHandler.jspError(DefaultErrorHandler.java:51)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.dispatch(ErrorDispatcher.java:409)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.jspError(ErrorDispatcher.java:116)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.TagLibraryInfoImpl.generateTLDLocation(TagLibraryInfoImpl.java:315)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.TagLibraryInfoImpl.<init>(TagLibraryInfoImpl.java:148)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseTaglibDirective(Parser.java:429)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseDirective(Parser.java:492)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseElements(Parser.java:1439)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parse(Parser.java:137)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ParserController.doParse(ParserController.java:255)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ParserController.parse(ParserController.java:103)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.generateJava(Compiler.java:170)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:332)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:312)
    at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:299)
    at org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.compile(JspCompilationContext.java:586)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:317)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:342)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:267)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:293)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:849)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:454)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

I have:

  • pom.xml

    <dependency>
  <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
  <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
  <version>2.5</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
  <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
  <version>2.1</version>
  <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

<dependency>
  <groupId>taglibs</groupId>
  <artifactId>standard</artifactId>
  <version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
  <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
  <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

  • web.xml

    <web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
  version="2.5">

  • index.jsp

    <%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<html> 
<head></head>
<body></body>
</html>

Answer

BalusC picture BalusC · Feb 8, 2011

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed with this application

That URI is for JSTL 1.0, but you're actually using JSTL 1.2 which uses URIs with an additional /jsp path (because JSTL, who invented EL expressions, was since version 1.1 integrated as part of JSP in order to share/reuse the EL logic in plain JSP too).

So, fix the taglib URI accordingly based on JSTL documentation:

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>

Further you need to make absolutely sure that you do not throw multiple different versioned JSTL JAR files together into the runtime classpath. This is a pretty common mistake among Tomcat users. The problem with Tomcat is that it does not offer JSTL out the box and thus you have to manually install it. This is not necessary in normal Java EE servers. See also What exactly is Java EE?

In your specific case, your pom.xml basically tells you that you have jstl-1.2.jar and standard-1.1.2.jar together. This is wrong. You're basically mixing JSTL 1.2 API+impl from Oracle with JSTL 1.1 impl from Apache. You need to remove any standard-xxx.jar. Just only the jstl-1.2.jar is sufficient.

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

Non-Maven users can achieve the same by dropping the physical jstl-1.2.jar file in /WEB-INF/lib folder of the web application project (do absolutely not drop standard.jar or any loose .tld files in there!). Remove them if necessary.

In case you're actually using a normal Java EE server such as WildFly, Payara, etc instead of a barebones servletcontainer such as Tomcat, Jetty, etc, then you don't need to explicitly install JSTL at all. Normal Java EE servers already provide JSTL out the box. In other words, you don't need to add JSTL to pom.xml nor to drop any JAR/TLD files in webapp. Solely the provided scoped Java EE coordinate is sufficient:

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax</groupId>
    <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
    <version><!-- 8.0, 7.0, etc depending on your server --></version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

Further you should also make sure that your web.xml is declared conform at least Servlet 2.4 and thus not as Servlet 2.3 or older. Otherwise EL expressions inside JSTL tags would in turn fail to work. Pick the highest version matching your target container and make sure that you don't have a <!DOCTYPE> anywhere in your web.xml. Here's a Servlet 4.0 (Tomcat 9) compatible example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app
    xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4_0.xsd"
    version="4.0">

    <!-- Config here. -->

</web-app>

See also:

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