HELP JSTL problem when mixed with appserv-rt.jar

Question

Hi,
I've started using JSTL tags in my JSP. All was good until i needed to call a remote EJB from a servlet, store the object to a session, and redirect to a JSP page to display the content of the remote object. We'll just to clear things, i am able to do this properly using JSP expressions <%=myVar%>. And i am able to use <c:out value="${myVar}" /> on a project which does not have appserv-rt.jar inside it's lib directory. I'm getting a java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance()Ljavax/el/ExpressionFactory; when i add appserv-rt.jar in my lib. I'm using tomcat6 as my web server and glassfish as my app server. Below is the complete stack trace from tomcat:
SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet jsp threw exception
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance()Ljavax/el/ExpressionFactory;
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.JspUtil.getExpressionFactory(JspUtil.java:1166)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.JspUtil.validateExpressions(JspUtil.java:628)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.getJspAttribute(Validator.java:1341)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.checkXmlAttributes(Validator.java:1117)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator$ValidateVisitor.visit(Validator.java:834)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$CustomTag.accept(Node.java:1482)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Nodes.visit(Node.java:2257)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Visitor.visitBody(Node.java:2307)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Visitor.visit(Node.java:2313)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Root.accept(Node.java:481)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Node$Nodes.visit(Node.java:2257)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Validator.validate(Validator.java:1837)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.generateJava(Compiler.java:195)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:409)
     at org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.compile(JspCompilationContext.java:592)
     at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:344)
     at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:470)
     at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:364)
     at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:630)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:436)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:374)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:302)
     at gogogo.MyServlet.doPost(MyServlet.java:88)
     at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:710)
     at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:175)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128)
     at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
     at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:286)
     at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:844)
     at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583)
     at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:447)
     at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
This has been driving me nuts for days... any help would be deeply appreciated.
thanks

Answer 1

So the solution is not to have appserv-rt.jar in the lib directory?
Which lib directory are you referring to?
Your WEB-INF/lib or Tomcat's lib?
I presume you are including appserv-rt.jar for the remote EJB stuff?
After a quick google I found [this page|http://www.java2s.com/Code/Jar/glassfish/Downloadappservrtjar.htm] listing all the classes included in this jar.
There are a bunch of Tomcat classes in there - including org.apache.jasper.compiler.
That would be plenty enough to create classpath clashes between your app and Tomcat's classes.
After some googling I found this link
[http://nicl.net/2008/06/tomcat-glassfish-and-ejb-what-a-mess/]
Maybe it will help you sort out your problem? But definitely this appserv-rt.jar seems overkill for the job of just providing EJB support.