Error while compiling

[thirun pavan]

Hi All,

I am trying to learn J2EE using the head first servlet and JSP book, and while I was trying their first example there I wrote the following command:

 javac -classpath /usr/local/tomcat/common/lib/servlet-api.jar -d classes src/Ch1Servlet.java 

then I got the following errors:

src/Ch1Servlet.java:1: package javax.servlet does not exist
import javax.servlet.*;
^
src/Ch1Servlet.java:2: package javax.servlet.http does not exist
import javax.servlet.http.*;
^
src/Ch1Servlet.java:5: cannot find symbol
symbol: class HttpServlet
public class Ch1Servlet extends HttpServlet {
                                ^
src/Ch1Servlet.java:7: cannot find symbol
symbol  : class HttpServletRequest
location: class Ch1Servlet
  public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
                    ^
src/Ch1Servlet.java:8: cannot find symbol
symbol  : class HttpServletResponse
location: class Ch1Servlet
                  HttpServletResponse response)
                  ^

I am sure I have Java installed on my machine, so can someone please help me and tell me what exactly I am doing wrong here?

Thanks for your time

[Greg Charles]

Yes, the Java compiler seems to be working. Otherwise you'd be getting a whole different kind of error. The only two possibilities I can think of are:

You don't have the servlet-api.jar in the location you have specified. Even a small typo would cause this problem.

The servelet-api.jar doesn't contain those packages and classes. As far as I know, it should, but it's easy to open up the jar and look for yourself.

[Charbel Keyrouz]

The servlet-api.jar does contain HttpServlet, HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse.
The problem is in the path, make sure that you are pointing to the right path that contains the mentioned jar above.

[David Curry]

Just to be a bit more specific:

HttpServlet, HttpServletRequest, and HttpServletResponse are all in the J2EE library. It may be that you only have Java SE (Java standard edition) installed. Be sure to download J2EE and place the j2ee.jar file in your classpath.

Note: The "javax" in import javax.servlet.* is a sure sign that it is J2EE package.

[thirun pavan]

Thanks all for your help and support...highly appreciated

I found my mistake and it was in the path to the jar file, now everything is working fine

Thanks again

[Campbell Ritchie]

David Curry wrote:The "javax" in import javax.servlet.* is a sure sign that it is J2EE package.

No, it isn't. There are J2SE classes in javax.* packages.

[Rob Spoor]

Swing classes being the best known.

[Charbel Keyrouz]

These classes do not exist in the J2EE packages they only exist in the servlet-api.jar