Can't access a Java servlet through its URL

Question

I'm trying to set up a very basic JEE project with Eclipse+Tomcat using a single servlet and JSP. However I'm getting a HTTP 500 Internal Server Error when trying to access its URL http://localhost:8080/test/toto. The exception message being displayed is:

Cannot invoke "javax.servlet.RequestDispatcher.forward(javax.servlet.ServletRequest, javax.servlet.ServletResponse)" because the return value of "javax.servlet.ServletContext.getRequestDispatcher(String)" is null.

Here is my Test servlet code:


import java.io.*;

import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class Test extends HttpServlet {
    public void doGet( HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response )
               throws ServletException, IOException{
        this.getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher( "/WEB-INF/test.jsp" ).forward( request, response );
    }
}

The test.jsp file should just display a message : "Generated by a JSP" Here's the content of web.xml for reference :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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_3_0.xsd"
  version="3.0">
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>Test</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.sdzee.servlets.Test</servlet-class>
    </servlet>

    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>Test</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/toto</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

The corresponding Tomcat log reads :

0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 - - [10/Dec/2020:14:29:47 +0100] "GET /test/toto HTTP/1.1" 500 1606

This is the project arborescence

Edit: Other things I recently tried: Reinstall Eclipse+Tomcat on another pc and start again, move test.jsp directly to WebContent and access http://localhost:8080/test/test.jsp: results in a HTTP 404 ressource not found error. I've just noticed that before I create my servlet I can access whatever file I create under WebContent at http://localhost:8080/test/whatever.jsp but I can't do that anymore once I add the servlet and establish the mapping in web.xml

I messed up the formatting on here, it should be fine now, I deleted the extra '>' — deque, Dec 10 '20 at 15:26

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 13 '20 at 10:33

0

I was editing the web.xml file of the Tomcat server and not the one of the project, that's why nothing was working as expected.

answered Dec 13 '20 at 10:33

deque

131
4

Can't access a Java servlet through its URL

1 Answers1