Can not find the tag library descriptor for “http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core”

Question

Can not find the tag library descriptor for “http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core”

Based on one of your previous questions you're using Tomcat 7. In that case you need JSTL 1.2. However, you've there a jstl.jar file while JSTL 1.2 has clearly the version number included like so jstl-1.2.jar. The sole filename jstl.jar is typical for JSTL 1.0 and 1.1. This version requires a standard.jar along in /WEB-INF/lib which contains the necessary TLD files. However, in your particular case the standard.jar is clearly missing in /WEB-INF/lib and that's exactly the reason why the taglib URI couldn't be resolved.

To solve this you must remove the wrong JAR file, download jstl-1.2.jar and drop it in its entirety in /WEB-INF/lib. That's all. You do not need to extract it nor to fiddle in project's Build Path.

Don't forget to remove that loose c.tld file too. It absolutely doesn't belong there. This is indeed instructed in some poor tutorials or answers elsewhere in the Internet. This is a myth caused by a major misunderstanding and misconfiguration. There is never a need to have a loose JSTL TLD file in the classpath, also not in previous JSTL versions.

In case you're using Maven, use the below coordinate:

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

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. Here's a Servlet 3.0 (Tomcat 7) compatible example:

<?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>

###See also:

• Our JSTL wiki page (you can reach there by hovering the mouse on jstl and clicking info link)
• How to install JSTL? The absolute uri: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core cannot be resolved

I had same problem and despite having jstl

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

I had to add 'standard' as well:

<dependency>
    <groupId>taglibs</groupId>
    <artifactId>standard</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>

Also, as mentioned in previous post:

• for version 1.0 use: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core
• for 1.1 (and later) use: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core

The URI depends on the version of JSTL you are using. For Version 1.0 use:

http://java.sun.com/jstl/core

and for 1.1 (and later), you need to use:

http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core

If you are using maven your pom's <dependencies> tag should look like:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.5</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>taglibs</groupId>
        <artifactId>standard</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.2</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

It works for me.

Downloading jstl-1.2.jar instead of jstl.jar solves the problem

This works as well:

<dependency>
    <scope>compile</scope>
    <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
    <artifactId>jstl-api</artifactId>
    <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

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

so used jstl 1.2 instead of standard.jar together with jstl-api 1.2