Yes, i have doctype in web.xml
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN" "java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd"; >
Remove that <!DOCTYPE> from web.xml and make sure that the <web-app> is declared conform Servlet 2.4 or newer and all should be well.
A valid Servlet 3.0 (Tomcat 7, JBoss AS 6-7, GlassFish 3, etc) compatible web.xml look like below in its entirety, without any <!DOCTYPE>:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
version="3.0">
<!-- Config here. -->
</web-app>
For Servlet 3.1 (Tomcat 8, WildFly 8-11, GlassFish/Payara 4, etc) it look like below:
<?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_3_1.xsd"
version="3.1">
<!-- Config here. -->
</web-app>
For Servlet 4.0 (Tomcat 9, WildFly 12-21, GlassFish/Payara 5, etc) it look like below:
<?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>
For Servlet 5.0 (Tomcat 10, WildFly 22, GlassFish/Payara 6, etc) it look like below:
<?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>
When using JSTL 1.1 or newer, you need to assure that your web.xml is declared in such way that the webapp runs in at least Servlet 2.4 modus, otherwise EL expressions won’t work in the webapp.
When still having a Servlet 2.3 or older <!DOCTYPE> or <web-app> in web.xml, even though you already have a Servlet 2.4 or newer XSD, then it would still be forced to run in Servlet 2.3 or older modus, causing the EL expressions to fail.
The technical reason is, EL was originally part of JSTL 1.0 and not available in Servlet 2.3 / JSP 1.2 and older. In JSTL 1.1, EL was removed from JSTL and integrated in JSP 2.0, which goes along with Servlet 2.4. So, if your web.xml is declared to run the webapp in Servlet 2.3 or older modus, then JSP would expect to find EL in JSTL library, but this would in turn fail if it’s a newer JSTL version, lacking EL.
See also:
- Difference between JSP EL, JSF EL and Unified EL – for a history of EL
- Our JSTL wiki page