How to install JSTL? It fails with "The absolute uri cannot be resolved" or "Unable to find taglib" or NoClassDefFoundError or ClassCastException

Question

I don't know what I've done incorrectly, but I can't include JSTL. I have jstl-1.2.jar, but unfortunately I get exception:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed with this application

I have this in pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>taglibs</groupId>
  <artifactId>standard</artifactId>
  <version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
  <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
  <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

I'm trying to use it as follows:

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>

Answer 1

In your specific case,

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed with this application

that URI is for JSTL 1.0, but you're actually using JSTL 1.2 which uses URIs with an additional /jsp path. This URI change is because JSTL, who invented EL expressions, was since version 1.1 integrated as part of JSP 2.0 (released way back in 2001!) in order to share/reuse the EL logic in plain JSP too. See also Difference between JSP EL, JSF EL and Unified EL.

So, fix the taglib URI accordingly based on JSTL 1.2 documentation:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>

Further you need to make absolutely sure that you do not throw multiple different versioned JSTL JAR files together into the runtime classpath or versions which don't match the expected version by the target runtime (the server) or merely the API without impl. Otherwise you risk seeing other errors like below:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Can not find the tag library descriptor for "http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to find taglib [c] for URI: [jakarta.tags.core]

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/jsp/tagext/TagLibraryValidator

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: jakarta/servlet/jsp/tagext/TagLibraryValidator

java.lang.ClassCastException: class org.apache.taglibs.standard.tlv.JstlCoreTLV cannot be cast to class jakarta.servlet.jsp.tagext.TagLibraryValidator

This is a pretty common mistake among Tomcat users. The problem with Tomcat is that it does not offer JSTL out the box and thus you have to manually install it. This is not necessary in normal Jakarta EE servers. See also What exactly is Java EE? and How to properly configure Jakarta EE libraries in Maven pom.xml for Tomcat?

In your specific case, your pom.xml basically tells you that you have jstl-1.2.jar and standard-1.1.2.jar together. This is wrong. You're basically mixing JSTL 1.2 API+impl from Oracle (GlassFish) with JSTL 1.1 impl from Apache. You should remove duplicate JSTL implementations and stick to only one JSTL implementation and the API version must match the impl version and the API version must be supported by the target runtime.

Installing JSTL on Tomcat 10.1.x

In case you're already on Tomcat 10.1.x (the second Jakartified version, with jakarta.* package instead of javax.* package, but the first version with the updated jakarta.tags.* namespace URNs instead of http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/* namespace URLs), use JSTL 3.0 via these dependency using the default Maven scope of compile (because Tomcat doesn't provide it out the box!):

<dependency>
    <groupId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.1</version>
</dependency>

Note that the API dependency is since this version not transitively included via the impl dependency, so you do need to explicitly declare it.

Non-Maven users can achieve the same by dropping the following two physical files in /WEB-INF/lib folder of the web application project (do absolutely not drop standard*.jar or any loose .tld files in there! remove them if necessary).

• jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api-3.0.0.jar (this is the JSTL 3.0 API)
• jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-3.0.1.jar (this is the JSTL 3.0.1 impl of EE4J)

As said, the namespace URIs have been changed to become URNs instead of URLs. JSTL core is since JSTL version 3.0 available via an easier to remember namespace URI in URN format:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="jakarta.tags.core" %>

See also JSTL 3.0 documentation.

In case you actually wanted to use the JSTL impl of Apache instead of EE4J then you need to know that they don't have a 3.0 let alone 2.0. The currently latest released version of Apache's JSTL impl is 1.2.3 and it is not anymore actively maintained since Feb 2015. The JSTL impl from EE4J (formerly Oracle / Sun) is currently (Jul 2023) your only choice.

Installing JSTL on Tomcat 10.0.x

In case you're on Tomcat 10.0.x (the first Jakartified version, with jakarta.* package instead of javax.* package), use JSTL 2.0 via this sole dependency using the default Maven scope of compile (because Tomcat doesn't provide it out the box!):

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Note that the API dependency is already transitively included via this impl dependency, so you do not need to explicitly declare it.

Non-Maven users can achieve the same by dropping the following two physical files in /WEB-INF/lib folder of the web application project (do absolutely not drop standard*.jar or any loose .tld files in there! remove them if necessary).

• jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api-2.0.0.jar (this is the JSTL 2.0 API)
• jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-2.0.0.jar (this is the JSTL 2.0 impl of EE4J)

Installing JSTL on Tomcat 9-

In case you're not on Tomcat 10 yet, but still on Tomcat 9 or older, use JSTL 1.2 via this sole dependency (this is compatible with Tomcat 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 but not older) using the default Maven scope of compile (because Tomcat doesn't provide it out the box!):

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.6</version>
</dependency>

Note that the API dependency is already transitively included via this impl dependency, so you do not need to explicitly declare it.

Non-Maven users can achieve the same by dropping the following two physical files in /WEB-INF/lib folder of the web application project (do absolutely not drop standard*.jar or any loose .tld files in there! remove them if necessary).

• jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api-1.2.7.jar (this is the JSTL 1.2 API)
• jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-1.2.6.jar (this is the JSTL 1.2 impl of EE4J)

Installing JSTL on normal JEE server

In case you're actually using a normal Jakarta EE server such as WildFly, Payara, TomEE, GlassFish, WebSphere, OpenLiberty, WebLogic, etc instead of a barebones servletcontainer such as Tomcat, Jetty, Undertow, etc, then you do not need to explicitly install JSTL at all. Normal Jakarta EE servers already provide JSTL out the box. In other words, you don't need to add JSTL to pom.xml nor to drop any JAR/TLD files in webapp. Solely the provided scoped Jakarta EE coordinate is sufficient:

<dependency>
    <groupId>jakarta.platform</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.jakartaee-api</artifactId>
    <version><!-- 10.0.0, 9.1.0, 9.0.0, 8.0.0, etc depending on your server --></version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

Make sure web.xml version is right

Further you should also make sure that your web.xml is declared conform at least Servlet 2.4 and thus not as Servlet 2.3 or older. Otherwise EL expressions inside JSTL tags would in turn fail to work. Pick the highest version matching your target container and make sure that you don't have a <!DOCTYPE> anywhere in your web.xml as that would otherwise still trigger Servlet 2.3 modus. Here's a Servlet 6.0 (Tomcat 10.1.x) compatible example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app 
    xmlns="https://jakarta.ee/xml/ns/jakartaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="https://jakarta.ee/xml/ns/jakartaee https://jakarta.ee/xml/ns/jakartaee/web-app_6_0.xsd"
    version="6.0">

    <!-- Config here. -->

</web-app>

And here's a Servlet 5.0 (Tomcat 10.0.x) compatible example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app 
    xmlns="https://jakarta.ee/xml/ns/jakartaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="https://jakarta.ee/xml/ns/jakartaee https://jakarta.ee/xml/ns/jakartaee/web-app_5_0.xsd"
    version="5.0">

    <!-- Config here. -->

</web-app>

And here's a Servlet 4.0 (Tomcat 9) compatible example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app
    xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4_0.xsd"
    version="4.0">

    <!-- Config here. -->

</web-app>

See also:

• JSTL core taglib documentation (for the right taglib URIs)
• EL expressions not evaluated in JSP
• How to configure pom.xml for Tomcat 10+ or Tomcat 9-

Answer 2

@BalusC is completely right, but If you still encounter this exception, it means that something you have done wrong. The most important information you will find is on the SO JSTL Tag Info page.

Basically this is a summary of what you need to do to deal with this exception.

1. Check the servlet version in web.xml: <web-app version="2.5">

2. Check if JSTL version is supported for this servlet version: Servlet version 2.5 uses JSTL 1.2 or Servlet version 2.4 uses JSTL 1.1

3. Your servlet container must have the appropriate library, or you must include it manually in your application. For example: JSTL 1.2 requires jstl-1.2.jar

What to do with Tomcat 5 or 6:

You need to include appropriate jar(s) into your WEB-INF/lib directory (it will work only for your application) or to the tomcat/lib (will work globally for all applications).

The last thing is a taglib in your jsp files. For JSTL 1.2 correct one is this:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>

Answer 3

I found another reason for this type of error: in my case, someone set the conf/catalina.properties setting tomcat.util.scan.StandardJarScanFilter.jarsToSkip property to * to avoid log warning messages, thereby skipping the necessary scan by Tomcat. Changing this back to the Tomcat default and adding an appropriate list of jars to skip (not including jstl-1.2 or spring-webmvc) solved the problem.

Answer 4

1. Download jstl-1.2.jar

2. Add this directive to your page: <%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>

3. Paste the JAR file in your WEB-INF/lib folder. This should work. (It worked for me.)

Answer 5

jstl-1.2.jar --> <%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
jstl-1.1.jar --> <%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" %>

also please check for the dependency jars that you have added javax.servlet.jar and javax.servlet.jsp.jstl-1.2.1.jar or not in your WEB-INF/lib folder. In my case these two solved the issue.

Answer 6

Add the jstl-1.2.jar into the tomcat/lib folder.

With this, your dependency error will be fixed again.

Answer 7

An answer for the year 2021

The question is still very popular, but all the answers are seriously outdated. All Java EE components were split off into various Jakarta projects and JSTL is no different. So here are the correct Maven dependencies as of today:

<dependency>
    <groupId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.7</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
    <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2.6</version>
</dependency>

Yes, the versions and groupIds do not match, but that's a quirk of the project's current state.

Answer 8

I just wanted to add the fix I found for this issue. I'm not sure why this worked. I had the correct version of jstl (1.2) and also the correct version of servlet-api (2.5)

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.5</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

I also had the correct address in my page as suggested in this thread, which is

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>

What fixed this issue for me was removing the scope tag from my xml file in the pom for my jstl 1.2 dependency. Again not sure why that fixed it but just in case someone is doing the spring with JPA and Hibernate tutorial on pluralsight and has their pom setup this way, try removing the scope tag and see if that fixes it. Like I said it worked for me.

Answer 9

I have mentioned that the Maven dependency in the pom.xml is wrong. It should be

    <dependency>
        <groupId>jstl</groupId>
        <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
        <version>1.2</version>
    </dependency>

Answer 10

The most possible solutions for 2022

1 - Missing Libarires: download the library jstl/1.2 and Java Servlet API » 4.0.1

2 - Add these libraries to your project and also into the tomcat/lib folder.

3 - Add: <%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %> first line of the page.

4 - if you are using maven add the following into pom.xml file :

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.5</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

Answer 11

Just had similar problem in Eclipse fixed with:

rightclick on project->Properties->Deployment Assembly->add Maven Dependencies

something kicked it out before, while I was editing my pom.xml

I had all needed jar files, taglib uri and web.xml was ok

Answer 12

If you use Spring boot, consider to remove server.tomcat.additional-tld-skip-patterns=*.jar from Application.properties if there is any

Answer 13

I had disabled MAVEN and Spring tools completely. And I had to add the following jar's for making my environment work right.

• spring-aop-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar
• spring-beans-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar (tough to find this fix, other org.springframework<3.versions> just did not work.
• spring-context-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar
• spring-core-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar
• spring-expression-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar
• spring-web-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar
• spring-webmvc-4.0.3.RELEASE.jar
• jstl-1.2.jar

The worst of all was jstl-api-1.2.jar and javax-servlet.jsp.jst-api-1.2.1.jar. They just did not work.

jstl-1.2.jar worked well.

Answer 14

All of the answers in this question helped me but I thought I'd add some additional information for posterity.

It turned out that I had a test dependency on gwt-test-utils which brought in the gwt-dev package. Unfortunately gwt-dev contains a full copy of Jetty, JSP, JSTL, etc. which was ahead of the proper packages on the classpath. So even though I had proper dependencies on the JSTL 1.2 it would loading the 1.0 version internal to gwt-dev. Grumble.

The solution for me was to not run with test scope so I don't pick up the gwt-test-utils package at runtime. Removing the gwt-dev package from the classpath in some other manner would also have fixed the problem.

Answer 15

I just wanted to add the fix for this issue. jstl 2.0 3.0 both had similar problem, trying for several hours, I find in pom.xml, <packaging>jar</packaging> had problem, change to war(file format) fix.

Answer 16

This workedfor me

    <groupId>jstl</groupId>
    <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2</version>

Answer 17

I had the same issue , I am using eclipse, just in case others experience the same issue:
In eclipse double click the tomcat server,
stop the server
untick the "server modules without publishing"
start the server.

Answer 18

Resolved same problem in Netbeans 12.3 and Tomcat 9.0:

1.Write in pom.xml:

<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl</artifactId><version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

2.Add jstl-1.2.jar in project.

3.Install manually artifact(Choose jstl-1.2.jar - downloaded from the Internet )

Answer 19

If using Tomcat 10:

Download

jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-2.0.0.jar

jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api-2.0.0.jar

Place in /WEB-INF/lib folder.

Don't forget to restart Tomcat!

Answer 20

2023 version Nothing else worked for me except adding the below to pom.xml: PS: I do realize that version 2.0.0 of jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl contains some vulnerability, please use caution.

<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl/jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
            <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.glassfish.web/jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
            <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.0</version>
        </dependency>

Answer 21

In case you have your dependencies as symliks under
Java Resources/Libraries/Maven Dependencies folder then;
Right-click Project >> properties >> Dependency Assembly >> Add >> Double click on (Maven Dependencies)

Answer 22

For me adding the below dependencies worked

<dependency>
        <groupId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
        <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
        <artifactId>jakarta.servlet.jsp.jstl</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.1</version>
    </dependency>

I have went to the jstl glass fish implementation to check the what are the current versions adding that to my pom.xml fixed my intellij showing that error.

Answer 23

Resolved similar problem in IBM RAD 7.5 by selecting:

1. Projects properties
2. Project Facets
3. JSTL check-box