Cannot resolve method getParameter() in JSP

Question

I'm building a small project in JSP. I want to take data from a HTML sign up form and save them to a database. But my IDE (intellij) won't allow me to do so because of the error in the title. Does anyone know a fix to this? Internet research didn't really helped me.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT

<%
    String name = request.getParameter("realName");
%>

Error: Cannot resolve method 'getParameter(java.lang.String)'.

How then? Also, I'm not taking this parameter from the url, I have a form in which the user fills using the post method. All in all I don't think it's really a duplicate question... — Marios Koni, Jun 12 '18 at 22:10
Did you try the suggestion in this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/1890462/738746? It suggests using EL like `${param.realName}` instead of scriptlet. — Bhesh Gurung, Jun 12 '18 at 22:20
Mine is 2017.2.5 and yet it recognizes JSP file and even suggested autocompletion for `param` in EL. Are you sure that it's using JSP editor to open your file? — Bhesh Gurung, Jun 12 '18 at 22:34
How did you write the EL? Just making sure that you didn't put it inside scriptlet `<% ... %>`. — Bhesh Gurung, Jun 12 '18 at 22:38
Yes I did the mistake and put it inside <%... so then what I should do though? it seems that the IDE allows it. — Marios Koni, Jun 12 '18 at 22:54
Do not use `<% ... %>` at all. Just use `${param.realName}` directly. — Bhesh Gurung, Jun 12 '18 at 22:59

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 13 '18 at 23:10

I'm assuming that your JSP file looks like this:

<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>$Title$</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  <%
    String name = request.getParameter("realName");
  %>
    Here's the param "realName": <%=name%>
  </body>
</html>

And that it looks like this, in your IntelliJ:

If that's the case, I'm almost sure you're missing the servlet-api.jar file in your classpath.

Here's one of the ways to add it on IntelliJ:

Right-click on your project and select Open Module Settings:

Make sure that you're on the Modules section, Dependencies tab, click on the "+" button at the bottom, and select 1 JARs or directories...:

Select the file servlet-api.jar from the folder lib at (THIS IS IMPORTANT:) the container where you're deploying your application (in my case, apache-tomcat-8.5.31):

Then click on the "Ok" button. Your program now should look like this:

You're good to go!

I hope it helps.

Note: I know that sometimes you cannot avoid to use scriptlets, especially when you're working on legacy codes, as I did for a while. Even though, please also pay attention to the other answers here about using scriptlets. There are several other options available.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 24 '18 at 12:37

2

As a complement to the answer, try this on your intellij ide :

add support framework
check maven
go to pom.xml

add servlet-api dependency :

<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/javax.servlet/javax.servlet-api -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.0</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

answered Sep 24 '18 at 12:37

ans1genie

429
1
6
16

1

+1 for the maven dependency. The key point is the tag "". You can find more details at https://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html#Dependency_Scope Please, pay attention to this one: "This is much like compile, but indicates you expect the JDK or a container to provide the dependency at runtime" – Almir Campos Oct 05 '18 at 21:40

Cannot resolve method getParameter() in JSP

2 Answers2