Thread: Trying to write a servlet, keep getting 404 errors in web browser.

Hey guys,

I'm usually pretty good with this stuff, but Servlets are kicking my ass. The logic all seems straightforward enough, but I can't figure out the environment.

Here's my setup: running Tomcat through XAMPP and using port 9999. The files themselves are all in a Dropbox folder. So the root here is: C:\Dropbox\xampp\tomcat\webapps\servletprojects

For this particular servlet, it's part of a larger project that also has some Javascript elements with some HTML pages and a style sheet. That is in:

C:\Dropbox\xampp\tomcat\webapps\servletprojects\Hi gherNumbersProject

Under that, I have the folder C:\Dropbox\xampp\tomcat\webapps\servletprojects\Hi gherNumbersProject\WEB-INF and within there I have C:\Dropbox\xampp\tomcat\webapps\servletprojects\Hi gherNumbersProject\WEB-INF\classes

Inside the WEB-INF folder I have my web.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app version="3.0"
  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">
 
   <servlet>
      <servlet-name>ProcessLogin</servlet-name>
      <servlet-class>process_login</servlet-class>
   </servlet>
 
    <servlet-mapping>
       <servlet-name>ProcessLogin</servlet-name>
       <url-pattern>/process_login</url-pattern>
   </servlet-mapping> 
</web-app>

Inside the classes folder I have process_login.class

And here is the code for my servlet. There's not much there yet, I just want to get text on the web browser screen.

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
 
public class process_login extends HttpServlet
{
	 public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
	         throws IOException, ServletException 
	         {
		 		PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
 
		 		out.println("Hello!");
	         }
 
 
}

So then I tell Eclipse to build the file. It generates the process_login.class file. I can't figure out how to get Eclipse to put it into the \WEB-INF\classes folder... it puts it in the project's main folder C:\Dropbox\xampp\tomcat\webapps\servletprojects\Hi gherNumbersProject right next to the process_login.java file. I've just been copying the .class file over manually. Any advice on how to get Eclipse to put the .class file where I want it is appreciated. But that isn't my main issue.

Lastly I point Firefox over to http://localhost:9999/servletproject.../process_login

But all I get is a 404 page:

HTTP Status 404 - /servletprojects/HigherNumbersProject/process_login

type Status report

message /servletprojects/HigherNumbersProject/process_login

description The requested resource is not available.
Apache Tomcat/7.0.30

Am I fundamentally misunderstanding the setup of servlets? Or is there some mundane detail I am missing?

This is really frustrating because I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy and I can figure this stuff out with enough effort, but I am absolutely hitting a wall here and burning off a lot of time. It's part of a larger class project which is due in 3 weeks. Though.... thank God I already got the Javascript, basic HTML layouts, and styling done. If I can clear this hurdle and just get the stupid servlets working I think I can plow through the internal code logic fairly quickly.