HTTP status 404 error running TimeForm servlet project in NetBeans

Question

I'm trying to test the following servlet in a web project created with NetBeans. It constitutes a simple form which allows users to select locale and timezone from a list and display relevant information accordingly.

Here is the servlet code:

public class TimeForm extends HttpServlet {
  private static final String CONTENT_TYPE = "text/html";
  private Locale[] allLocale = Locale.getAvailableLocales();
  private String[] allTimeZone = TimeZone.getAvailableIDs();

  /** Process the HTTP Get request */
  public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse
      response) throws ServletException, IOException {
    response.setContentType(CONTENT_TYPE);
    PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
    out.println("<h3>Choose locale and time zone</h3>");
    out.println("<form method=\"post\" action=" +
      "/localhost:8080/TimeForm>");
    out.println("Locale <select size=\"1\" name=\"locale\">");

    // Fill in all locales
    for (int i = 0; i < allLocale.length; i++) {
      out.println("<option value=\"" + i +"\">" +
        allLocale[i].getDisplayName() + "</option>");
    }
    out.println("</select>");

    // Fill in all time zones
    out.println("<p>Time Zone<select size=\"1\" name=\"timezone\">");
    for (int i = 0; i < allTimeZone.length; i++) {
      out.println("<option value=\"" + allTimeZone[i] +"\">" +
        allTimeZone[i] + "</option>");
    }
    out.println("</select>");
    out.println("<p><input type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\" >");
    out.println("<input type=\"reset\" value=\"Reset\"></p>");
    out.println("</form>");
    out.close(); // Close stream
  }

  /** Process the HTTP Post request */
  public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse
      response) throws ServletException, IOException {
    response.setContentType(CONTENT_TYPE);
    PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
    out.println("<html>");
    int localeIndex = Integer.parseInt(
      request.getParameter("locale"));
    String timeZoneID = request.getParameter("timezone");
    out.println("<head><title>Current Time</title></head>");
    out.println("<body>");
    Calendar calendar =
      new GregorianCalendar(allLocale[localeIndex]);
    TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone(timeZoneID);
    DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(
      DateFormat.FULL, DateFormat.FULL, allLocale[localeIndex]);
    dateFormat.setTimeZone(timeZone);
    out.println("Current time is " +
      dateFormat.format(calendar.getTime()) + "</p>");
    out.println("</body></html>");
    out.close(); // Close stream
  }
}

And this is the web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="3.1" 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_3_1.xsd">
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>TimeForm</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>hw5.TimeForm</servlet-class>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>TimeForm</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/TimeForm</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

When I run the project through NetBeans, the code seems to compile fine and I get to select the locale and timezone. But when I click Submit, I get the following error:

Could someone explain to me why this is happening and how to go about fixing it?

The url is will be along the lines of `http://localhost:8080/projectname/TimeForm` — Scary Wombat, Mar 11 '16 at 06:09
Based on what you showed me, I don't believe that your project was ever deployed on Tomcat. This is likely because you never generated a WAR or EAR to be deployed. Look up using Maven to generate WAR, as this will get headed in the right direction. — Tim Biegeleisen, Mar 11 '16 at 06:37
There is an option under project compilation to compress WAR, which I initially didn't check. Doing so generates a TestTimeForm.war in the dist subdirectory of the project root folder. And when I run the project, I got the following console output (Please see screenshot). So is the project actually deployed? — sircactus77, Mar 11 '16 at 06:43
I copied the WAR to the webapps folder and deployed it using Tomcat's manager gui. But I'm still encountering the 404 error when I click Submit. Any ideas what's causing this? — sircactus77, Mar 11 '16 at 07:10

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 11 '16 at 08:56

After fiddling with this for another couple hours, I finally figured out that the problem lies in the fact that I wrote the wrong path in the form tag in the servlet's doGet method.

Instead of

out.println("<form method=\"post\" action=" +
      "/localhost:8080/TimeForm>");

It should be

out.println("<form method=\"post\" action=" +
      "/TestTimeForm/TimeForm>");

Now when I run the servlet and click the submit button, there is no more HTTP status 404.

HTTP status 404 error running TimeForm servlet project in NetBeans

1 Answers1