Compiling servlets with javac

Question

I want to compile servlets outside of NetBeans. I made a simple Hello World servlet that produced these compiler errors.

import javax.servlet.ServletException;                                                           
                    ^                                                                            
ServletTester.java:4: package javax.servlet.http does not exist                                  
import javax.servlet.http.*;                                                                     
^                                                                                                
ServletTester.java:6: cannot find symbol                                                         
symbol: class HttpServlet                                                                        
public class ServletTester extends HttpServlet {                                                 
                                   ^                                                             
ServletTester.java:7: cannot find symbol                                                         
symbol  : class HttpServletRequest                                                               
location: class ServletTester                                                                    
        protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) t
                                      ^
ServletTester.java:7: cannot find symbol
symbol  : class HttpServletResponse
location: class ServletTester
        protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) t
                                                                  ^
ServletTester.java:7: cannot find symbol
symbol  : class ServletException
location: class ServletTester
        protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) t

6 errors

Clearly, the javax.servlet package cannot be located. I have javax.servlet.jar from a GlassFish install, but if I do javac ServletTester.java -classpath /opt/glassfish3/glassfish/modules/ I still get the same errors.

What is the proper way to manually compile servlets?

Answer 1

Try this:

$ javac -classpath .:/opt/glassfish3/glassfish/modules/javax.servlet.jar ServletTester.java 

Please note that JAR filenames in classpath must be fully specified. Just their containing directory is not enough. Using wildcards is also allowed (as appointed by one comment).