Spring MVC and Tiles Integration Issue

Question

I am trying to create a simple Spring 3 MVC app with tiles integration.

When I try to build the app I get this error message (truncated for brevity):

java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.getXMLReader(Digester.java:1058)
at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1887)
at org.apache.tiles.definition.digester.DigesterDefinitionsReader.read(DigesterDefinitionsReader.java:329)
at org.apache.tiles.definition.dao.BaseLocaleUrlDefinitionDAO.loadDefinitionsFromURL(BaseLocaleUrlDefinitionDAO.java:276)
at org.apache.tiles.definition.dao.CachingLocaleUrlDefinitionDAO.loadDefinitionsFromURLs(CachingLocaleUrlDefinitionDAO.java:251)

Am I missing some required library?

I have the following jars in WEB-INF/lib folder.

commons-beanutils-1.8.0.jar
commons-digester-2.0.jar

org.springframework.asm-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
org.springframework.beans-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
org.springframework.context-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
org.springframework.core-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
org.springframework.expression-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
org.springframework.web.servlet-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
org.springframework.web-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar
tiles-api-2.2.2.jar
tiles-core-2.2.2.jar
tiles-jsp-2.2.2.jar
tiles-servlet-2.2.2.jar
tiles-template-2.2.2.jar
log4j-1.2.16.jar
slf4j-api-1.6.4.jar
slf4j-log4j12-1.6.4.jar

WEB-INF/web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"     xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
<display-name>SpringMVC</display-name>
  <servlet>
<servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>  
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>  
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>  
<servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>  
<url-pattern>*.html</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
</web-app>

WEB-INF/spring-servlet.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

<!-- DispatcherServlet Context: defines this servlet's request-processing infrastructure -->

<!-- Scans within the base package of the application for @Components to configure as beans -->
<!-- @Controller, @Service, @Configuration, etc. -->
<context:component-scan base-package="xyz.sample.baremvc" />

<!-- Enables the Spring MVC @Controller programming model -->
<mvc:annotation-driven />

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver">
    <property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesView" />
</bean> 

<bean id="tilesConfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesConfigurer">
    <property name="definitions">
        <list>
            <value>/WEB-INF/tiles.xml</value>
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

WEB-INF/tiles.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC 
 "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 2.0//EN" 
 "http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_2_0.dtd">
<tiles-definitions>
    <definition name="base.definition" template="/WEB-INF/views/layout.jsp">
    <put-attribute name="title" value="" />
    <put-attribute name="header" value="/WEB-INF/views/header.jsp" />
    <put-attribute name="menu" value="/WEB-INF/views/menu.jsp" />
    <put-attribute name="body" value="" />
    <put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/views/footer.jsp" />
    </definition>

    <definition name="contact" extends="base.definition">
    <put-attribute name="title" value="Contact Manager" />
    <put-attribute name="body" value="/WEB-INF/views/contact.jsp" />
    </definition>
</tiles-definitions>

Thanks

Farid · Answer 1 · 2012-05-16T14:36:41.210

use commons-digester-1.8.jar with tiles 2.2.2, the version 2.0 of commons-digester is buggy regarding sax.

Edit: extra of the pom I used to solve the issue it's to solve the initial http request which is a know issue (note i am using the jdk 1.6) here is an extra of my pom to make it work:

        <!-- Note: tiles 2.2 uses commons-digester 2.0 which is buggy with sax 
            (http request will fail the first time) using version 1.8 to solve the issue -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-digester</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-digester</artifactId>
            <version>1.8</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
            <artifactId>tiles-servlet</artifactId>
            <version>${apacheTiles.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>commons-digester</groupId>
                    <artifactId>commons-digester</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
            <artifactId>tiles-jsp</artifactId>
            <version>${apacheTiles.version}</version>
        </dependency>

with ${apacheTiles.version} being 2.2.2 and the version of spring being 3.0.5.RELEASE

I got commons-digestor-2.0 in the distribution for tiles 2.2.2 itself. — Sahil Dave, May 16 '12 at 14:07
under a jdk 1.6 (and probably other context), the exception happens only on the first http request, further http request will work. I've edited my post with an extract of the pom to resolve the issue. — Farid, May 16 '12 at 14:38

vinodn · Answer 2 · 2012-05-17T09:50:39.557

I am assuming the com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl is being referred from a third party library. Make sure it is being referred from Sun's jre library.

If you are using maven, try excluding any unwanted libraries from class path.

or refer to this post

EDIT:

Look at this piece of code from org.apache.commons.digester.parser.XercesParser

 public static SAXParser newSAXParser(Properties properties) 
        throws ParserConfigurationException, 
              SAXException,
               SAXNotSupportedException {

   SAXParserFactory factory =  
                    (SAXParserFactory)properties.get("SAXParserFactory");

    if (versionNumber == null){
      versionNumber = getXercesVersion();
        version = new Float( versionNumber ).floatValue();
   }

   // Note: 2.2 is completely broken (with XML Schema). 
    if (version > 2.1) {

       configureXerces(factory);
       return factory.newSAXParser();
   } else {
        SAXParser parser = factory.newSAXParser();
       configureOldXerces(parser,properties);
       return parser;
    }
   }

I checked the project's build path and there were two more Jars having the SAXParserFactoryImpl class. I removed those two jars, and now only the JRockit's SAXParserFactoryImpl is present, but still the issue persists. — Sahil Dave, May 16 '12 at 14:58
I am not sure if you have resolved the issue by this time. But based on the Digester class' code ( http://grepcode.com/file/repo1.maven.org/maven2/commons-digester/commons-digester/2.0/org/apache/commons/digester/Digester.java#Digester.getXMLReader%28%29 ) they are expecting Xerces Version number > 2.1 — vinodn, May 17 '12 at 09:48

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 18 '14 at 08:49

0

replace commons-digestor-2.0 with commons-digestor-1.7 for tiles 2.2.2 to resolve this issue.

answered Sep 18 '14 at 08:49

Soumyashree Jena

1

2

This is essentially the same solution suggested by an earlier answer. Other than changing the recommended version of `commons-digestor` it adds little new value to the question or answer. Your answer could be improved with some justification or explanation why version `1.7` should be preferred (e.g. over `1.8`). – William Price Sep 18 '14 at 09:04

Spring MVC and Tiles Integration Issue

3 Answers3