jsp - Java error: Only a type can be imported. XYZ resolves to a package

Question

I get the error: "Only a type can be imported. XYZ resolves to a package."

Someone has explained the cause here but I am not sure what I supposed to do to fix this. FYI: I am using Eclipse. I have added the code that does the importing below. The java.util.* import works fine.

 <%@ page import="java.util.*"%>
 <%@ page import="org.eresearch.knowledgeportal.model.Category"%>
 <%@ page import="org.eresearch.knowledgeportal.dao.CategoryDao"%>

 <% 
  CategoryDao catDao = new CategoryDao();
  ArrayList<Category> catList = catDao.selectCategory();

 //
 %>

Edit: the actual error is below:

 org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP: 

 An error occurred at line: 7 in the generated java file
 Only a type can be imported. org.eresearch.knowledgeportal.model.Category resolves to a package

Answer 1

Well, you are not really providing enough details on your webapp but my guess is that you have a JSP with something like that:

<%@ page import="java.util.*,x.y.Z"%> 

And x.y.Z can't be found on the classpath (i.e. is not present under WEB-INF/classes nor in a JAR of WEB-INF/lib).

Double check that the WAR you deploy on Tomcat has the following structure:

my-webapp
|-- META-INF
|   `-- MANIFEST.MF
|-- WEB-INF
|   |-- classes
|   |   |-- x
|   |   |   `-- y
|   |   |       `-- Z.class
|   |   `-- another
|   |       `-- packagename
|   |           `-- AnotherClass.class
|   |-- lib
|   |   |-- ajar.jar
|   |   |-- bjar.jar
|   |   `-- zjar.jar
|   `-- web.xml
|-- a.jsp
|-- b.jsp
`-- index.jsp

Or that the JAR that bundles x.y.Z.class is present under WEB-INF/lib.