Datasource works with java code but not with sql:query dataSource=...

Question

Hello everyone! I have a small problem with binding a DataSource object via JNDI and retrieving it in a web application. This is the case:
I did not wish to make the DataSource available through the server.xml, because I want to create applications that can be bundled in a simple .war file. So I create the DataSource when the context is created in the contextInitialized() method of ServletContextListener like this:
InitialContext initialContext = new InitialContext();
Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.setProperty( "driverClassName", "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" );
properties.setProperty( "factory",   "org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory" );
properties.setProperty( "username", servletContext.getInitParameter( "dbUser" ) );
properties.setProperty( "password", servletContext.getInitParameter( "dbPass" ) );
properties.setProperty( "url",      servletContext.getInitParameter( "dbUrl" ) );
properties.setProperty( "defaultAutoCommit", "false" );
properties.setProperty( "maxActive",         "25" );
properties.setProperty( "initialSize",       "15" );
properties.setProperty( "maxIdle",           "10" );
properties.setProperty( "testOnBorrow",      "true" );
properties.setProperty( "testOnReturn",      "true" );
properties.setProperty( "testWhileIdle",     "true" );
properties.setProperty( "validationQuery",   "SELECT 1" );
properties.setProperty( "removeAbandoned",   "true" );
DataSource dataSource = BasicDataSourceFactory.createDataSource( properties );
initialContext.rebind( "daers", dataSource );Please comment if you think this is a bad idea!
All the above seems to work fine. When I try to retrieve the DataSource in a .jsp file then it all works fine like this:
<% try {
        javax.naming.InitialContext initialContext = new javax.naming.InitialContext();
        java.sql.Connection conn = ( ( javax.sql.DataSource )initialContext.lookup( "daers" )).getConnection();
        java.sql.Statement statement = conn.createStatement();
        java.sql.ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("SELECT users.name FROM users;");
        while (resultSet.next()) {
            System.out.println(resultSet.getString(1));
    } catch ( java.sql.SQLException e ) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch ( javax.naming.NamingException e ) {
        e.printStackTrace();
%>But when I try to execute the same sql query through the appropriate JSTL taglib I get a:
javax.servlet.ServletException: Unable to get connection, DataSource invalid: "java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver"The JSTL code I use is this:
<sql:query dataSource = "daers" var = "query" scope = "page">
        SELECT users.name
        FROM users
    </sql:query>I do put both of the two above pieces of code in the same .jsp page and the first works but the second causes the exception...
Any clues..?
Is it illegal to lookup a DataSource in <sql: dataSource=...> if the DataSource is not registered in the server.xml file..?
If so, do I have any alternatives (like putting the DataSource as a servlet context variable)..?

Answer 1

I added a response in your original message:
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9629812
Let's keep to it since splitting things across two posts might be confusing.