WebLogic Spring JSTL NoClassDefFoundError

Question

I am having difficulty getting Spring applications to run on the 11g 10.3.1 WebLogic server. I receive the following exception where Spring can not find the JSTL classes. I am trying to port an application that runs on the 10g stack (oc4j 10.1.3.4) using Spring 2.5.6 and JSTL 1.1.2. I have tried a number of combinations however I always get the exception below. I have had the JSTL and standard jar files within the WEB-INF lib folder with and without manifest entries. I have also deployed the JSTL 1.1.2 Library into WebLogic and referenced it within the application using the weblogic.xml library-ref tag. Can any one suggest a way to make the JSTL library accessible to Spring?
The following Spring configuration is used:
<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"/>
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>
Regards
Neil
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/jsp/jstl/fmt/LocalizationContext
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.support.JstlUtils.exposeLocalizationContext(JstlUtils.java:83)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView.exposeHelpers(JstlView.java:81)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:119)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:243)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1141)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:878)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:792)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:475)
     at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:430)
     at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:707)
     at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:292)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
     at oracle.dms.wls.DMSServletFilter.doFilter(DMSServletFilter.java:202)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3588)
     at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
     at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2200)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:2106)
     at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.run(ServletRequestImpl.java:1428)
     at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:201)
     at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:173)

Answer 1

David,
Thanks for the suggestion. It lead me down the path to correcting the issue. I added the prefer-web-inf-classes setting and resolved the issue.
This was an interesting one though as initially this solution did not work. During the previous trial and error I removed the Spring classes from the WEB-INF/lib folder and used the ones provided in WebLogic. Under these conditions the prefer-web-inf-classes makes no difference despite the JSTL and standard jars being deployed with the application i.e. the class not found exception is still present. I had to move the Spring jar files into the WEB-INF/lib directory along side the JSTL jar files. This worries me a bit in that the classpath for the application does not seem to be consistent and is set differently depending on where the class is loaded from. For example why when Spring is loaded from the default server location can it not see jars within the WEB-INF/lib that are on the application classpath. Additionally why can jars loaded form the server not see shared server libraries configured for use within an application.
Regards
Neil