Generics not recognized in Tomcat 5.5

Question

The following is the JSP code I am using:
<%
Map<String,String> theMap = new HashMap<String,String>();
theMap.put("John", "5"); theMap.put("Jim", "7");
String theArray[] = { "aaa", "bbb", "ccc" };
%>
When I run this code, tomcat 5.5 is giving the following error:
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP
An error occurred at line: 1 in the jsp file: /el/DataStructures.jsp
Generated servlet error:
Syntax error on token "<", ( expected
An error occurred at line: 1 in the jsp file: /el/DataStructures.jsp
Generated servlet error:
Syntax error, insert ")" to complete Expression
An error occurred at line: 1 in the jsp file: /el/DataStructures.jsp
Generated servlet error:
Syntax error on token "<", ( expected
An error occurred at line: 1 in the jsp file: /el/DataStructures.jsp
Generated servlet error:
Syntax error on token "(", invalid Expression
What is the setting I have to make in Tomcat so that it recognizes the Generics ?
Thanks in advance..

Answer 1

It could also be that the JSP compiler with Tomcat that doesn't recognise the generics.
Which exact build of Tomcat 5.5 are you using?
By default Tomcat uses the Eclipse JDT as its jsp compiler.
Originally the bundled compiler was only Java1.4 compliant.
As far as I can tell from the change log (http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/changelog.html) the compiler was updated in Tomcat 5.5.10
If you have a version before that, you would also see this error message.
You can find out by running the following as a jsp page:
<h2> Server Info </h2>
Server info = <%= application.getServerInfo() %> <br>
Servlet engine version = <%=  application.getMajorVersion() %>.<%= application.getMinorVersion() %><br>
JSP version = <%= JspFactory.getDefaultFactory().getEngineInfo().getSpecificationVersion()  %> <br>
Java version = <%= System.getProperty("java.vm.version") %><br>
Session id = <%= session.getId() %><br>Useful links:
http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/jasper-howto.html (see compiler option)
http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/javac.html