JDeveloper 11g deploying a web project to WLS 10.3 using JSTL 1.2 tag library fails

When you create a web project using JSP and add the JSTL 1.2 core library to the project and eventually go to deploy your project as a WAR to an external WLS 10.3 server you may end up with the following exception and it fails to deploy.

weblogic.management.DeploymentException: [J2EE:160149]Error while processing library references. Unresolved Webapp Library references for "weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext@17409f8 - appName: 'jstl12demo', name: 'jstl12demo.war', context-path: '/jstl12demo', spec-version: '2.5'", defined in weblogic.xml [Extension-Name: jstl, Specification-Version: 1.2, exact-match: false].

What's odd is the integrated server works fine no issue there. The reason for this is the integrated server has the JSTL 1.2 library already defined. So the way to get around this in an external WLS 10.3 server is to do it one of 2 ways.

Option 1 - Deploy JSTL 1.2 libraries with the archive itself

1. Edit your deployment profile.
2. Select File Groups - WEB-INF/Lib - Contributors
3. Check the following to include the JSTL 1.2 libraries

• JSTL 1.2
• JSTL 1.2 Tags

4. Press OK
5. Redeploy and this time you get a successfull deployment.

---- Deployment started. ---- 13/10/2008 13:47:12
Target platform is (Weblogic 10.3).
Running dependency analysis...
Building...
2008-10-13 13:47:16.921: Writing WAR file to D:\jdev11gbea\jdeveloper\jdev\mywork\JSTL12\Project1\deploy\jstl12demo.war
2008-10-13 13:47:16.937: Wrote WAR file to D:\jdev11gbea\jdeveloper\jdev\mywork\JSTL12\Project1\deploy\jstl12demo.war
Deploying Application...
Application Deployed Successfully.
Elapsed time for deployment: 7 seconds
---- Deployment finished. ---- 13/10/2008 13:47:19


Option 2 - Setup WLS 10.3 to include a library for the JSTL 1.2 tags

1. Log into WLS 10.3 administration console
2. Click on deployments
3. Press the install button
4. Navigate to the following directory and select "jstl-1.2.war"

/u01/bea103/wlserver_10.3/common/deployable-libraries

5. Click next
6. Select the radio option to install this as a library
7. Select the target server for this library
8. Click next
9. Click finish

Now attempt to deploy your project which includes JSTL 1.2 tag references and it should deploy fine.

---- Deployment started. ---- 13/10/2008 13:55:03
Target platform is (Weblogic 10.3).
Running dependency analysis...
Building...
2008-10-13 13:55:07.625: Writing WAR file to D:\jdev11gbea\jdeveloper\jdev\mywork\JSTL12\Project1\deploy\jstl12demo.war
2008-10-13 13:55:07.64: Wrote WAR file to D:\jdev11gbea\jdeveloper\jdev\mywork\JSTL12\Project1\deploy\jstl12demo.war
Deploying Application...
Application Deployed Successfully.
Elapsed time for deployment: 7 seconds
---- Deployment finished. ---- 13/10/2008 13:55:10

By default due to using the JSTL 1.2 tag library when your deploying to WLS 10.3 the WAR file includes a file called weblogic.xml with contents as follows. As you can see the library reference we created is automatically used as per your project requirements to use JSTL 1.2. Once this is done all deployments targeted to the server using the JSTL 1.2 library you created will work as long as they use this in there deployment descriptor.

weblogic.xml

<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'windows-1252'?>
<weblogic-web-app
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/weblogic-web-app.xsd"
xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/weblogic-web-app">
<library-ref>
  <library-name>jstl</library-name>
  <specification-version>1.2</specification-version>
</library-ref>
</weblogic-web-app>