spring web application context is not loaded from jar file in WEB-INF/lib when running tomcat in eclipse

Question

I am experimenting with spring, maven, and eclipse but stumbling on a weird issue.

I am running Eclipse Helios SR1 with the STS (Spring tools suite) plugin which includes the Maven plugin also.

What i want to achieve is a spring mvc webapp which uses an application context loaded from a local application context xml file, but also from other application contexts in jar files dependencies included in WEB-INF/lib.

What i'd ultimately like to do is have my persistence layer separated in its own jar file but containing its own spring context files with persistence specific configuration (e.g a jpa entityManagerFactory for example).

So to experiment with loading resources from jar dependencies, i created a simple maven project from eclipse, which defines an applicationContext.xml file in src/main/resources Inside, i define a bean

<bean id="mybean" class="org.test.MyClass" />

and create the class in the org.test package

I run mvn->install from eclipse, which generates me a jar file containing my class and the applicationContext.xml file:

 testproj.jar
|_META-INF
|_org
    |_test
         |_MyClass.class
|_applicationContext.xml

I then create a spring mvc project from the Spring template projects provided by STS. I have configured an instance of Tomcat 7.0.8 , and also an instance of springSource tc Server within eclipse. Deploying the newly created project on both servers works without problem.

I then add my previous project as a maven dependency of the mvc project. the jar file is correctly added in the Maven Dependencies of the project.

In the web.xml that is generated, i now want to load the applicationContext.xml from the jar file as well as the existing one generated for the project. My web.xml now looks like this:

org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener

<!-- Processes application requests -->
<servlet>
    <servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>
            classpath*:applicationContext.xml,
            /WEB-INF/spring/appServlet/servlet-context.xml
        </param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Also, in my servlet-context.xml, i have the following:

<context:component-scan base-package="org.test" />
<context:component-scan base-package="org.remy.mvc" />

to load classes from the jar spring context (org.test) and to load controllers from the mvc app context.

I also change one of my controllers in org.remy.mvc to autowire MyClass to verify that loading the context has worked as intended.

public class MyController {

@Autowired
    private MyClass myClass;

    public void setMyClass(MyClass myClass) {
        this.myClass = myClass;
    }

    public MyClass getMyClass() {
        return myClass;
    }

[...] 
}

Now this is the weird bit:

If i deploy the spring mvc web on my tomcat instance inside eclipse (run on server...) I get the following error :

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping#0': Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/test/MyClass
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:527)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:580)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:895)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:425)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:442)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:458)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:339)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:306)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:127)
    at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:160)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.initServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1133)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1087)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:996)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:4834)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext$3.call(StandardContext.java:5155)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext$3.call(StandardContext.java:5150)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:885)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:907)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/test/MyClass
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2427)
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods(Class.java:1791)
    at org.springframework.util.ReflectionUtils.doWithMethods(ReflectionUtils.java:446)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping.determineUrlsForHandlerMethods(DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping.java:172)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping.determineUrlsForHandler(DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping.java:118)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.AbstractDetectingUrlHandlerMapping.detectHandlers(AbstractDetectingUrlHandlerMapping.java:79)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.AbstractDetectingUrlHandlerMapping.initApplicationContext(AbstractDetectingUrlHandlerMapping.java:58)
    at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport.initApplicationContext(ApplicationObjectSupport.java:119)
    at org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationObjectSupport.initApplicationContext(WebApplicationObjectSupport.java:72)
    at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport.setApplicationContext(ApplicationObjectSupport.java:73)
    at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.invokeAwareInterfaces(ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.java:106)
    at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.postProcessBeforeInitialization(ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.java:85)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsBeforeInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:394)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1413)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
    ... 25 more
20-Feb-2011 10:54:53 org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
SEVERE: StandardWrapper.Throwable
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping#0': Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/test/MyClass

If i build the war file (using maven "install" goal), and then deploy that war file in the webapps directory of a standalone tomcat server (7.0.8 as well) it WORKS :-(

What am i missing ?

Thanks for the help.

If you inspect your produced jar, does `org.test.MyClass` exist there? — Johan Sjöberg, Feb 20 '11 at 11:55
yes... and the jar is also present in the war file WEB-INF/lib. Eclipse does not report any errors either. The only thing i can think of is that somehow the classloader of tomcat behaves differently when loaded within eclipse than when running standalone. But i am not sure what to do if that's the case — Remy J, Feb 20 '11 at 12:06
possible duplicate of [ClassNotFoundException DispatcherServlet when launching Tomcat (Maven dependencies not copied to wtpwebapps)](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4777026/classnotfoundexception-dispatcherservlet-when-launching-tomcat-maven-dependenci) — artbristol, May 09 '12 at 07:17

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

3

Thanks to all of you who tried to answer my question. I think i found the solution to my own problem (after much frustration)

This has already been answered in

ClassNotFoundException DispatcherServlet when launching Tomcat (Maven dependencies not copied to wtpwebapps)

edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

Community

1
1

answered Feb 20 '11 at 16:16

Remy J

41
1
1
4

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 20 '11 at 15:21

1

Sounds like a spring.jar is being picked up from inside Tomcat which is the wrong classloader as it cannot see your classes.

How did you install said Tomcat inside Eclipse?

answered Feb 20 '11 at 15:21

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

73,784
33
194
347

I have downloaded Tomcat from the apache website as a zip, and then pointed eclipse to it in Preferences->Server->Runtime Environments->Add... then selected apache Tomcat 7.0 in the list and pointed to the directory where i unzipped it. – Remy J Feb 20 '11 at 15:48

spring web application context is not loaded from jar file in WEB-INF/lib when running tomcat in eclipse

2 Answers2