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- Written by Nam Ha Minh
- Last Updated on 28 June 2019   |   Print Email
When creating a new Java Servlet in Eclipse IDE, you may encounter the following errors:
HttpServlet cannot be resolved to a type
HttpServletRequest cannot be resolved to a type
HttpServletResponse cannot be resolved to a type
ServletException cannot be resolved to a type
The import javax.servlet cannot be resolved
WebServlet cannot be resolved to a type
It looks something like this screenshot in Eclipse:
The reason is the Java Servlet API is missing in the project’s classpath. You can solve this problem by specifying a server runtime for the project, e.g. Apache Tomcat runtime – because a Java web server is a servlet container that implements the Servlet API.In Eclipse, right click on the project, click
Properties. In the project properties dialog, click
Java Build Path, and click the button
Add Library… as shown below:
In the
Add Library dialog appears, select
Server Runtime:
Click
Next. In the next screen select
Apache Tomcat and click
Finish:
If you don’t see any Apache Tomcat servers here, probably you haven’t installed Tomcat nor added to Eclipse. So follow
this tutorial to add Tomcat in Eclipse.Click
Finish to close the Server Library dialog, and you will see the server library Apache Tomcat appears:
Then click
Apply and Close, the errors will be gone.In case you use Maven, the solution would be simpler. Just add a dependency for Java Servlet API in the
pom.xml file like this:
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.0.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
Save the file and wait for seconds for Maven to update the project. You will see the errors are gone way.
NOTE: To avoid this error in future, you should select the
Target Runtime as
Apache Tomcat when creating the project in Eclipse:
Other Java Servlet Tutorials:
About the Author:
Nam Ha Minh is certified Java programmer (SCJP and SCWCD). He started programming with Java in the time of Java 1.4 and has been falling in love with Java since then. Make friend with him on
Facebook and watch
his Java videos you YouTube.