Using EL 2.2 in an application deployed on Oracle Weblogic 10.3.6 isn't working? - el

Question

I'm running Weblogic 10.3.6 and trying to build a new dynamic web application (in eclipse) that supports JSF 2.2.8 and EL 2.2 and JDK 1.7 U45, but unfortunately EL 2.2 is throwing an exception.
The weblogic.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wls:weblogic-web-app xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app" 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_2_5.xsd http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app/1.3/weblogic-web-app.xsd">
<wls:weblogic-version>10.3.6</wls:weblogic-version>
<wls:context-root>MyApp</wls:context-root>
<wls:library-ref>
<wls:library-name>jstl</wls:library-name>
<wls:specification-version>1.2</wls:specification-version>
<wls:exact-match>true</wls:exact-match>
</wls:library-ref>
<wls:container-descriptor>
<wls:prefer-application-packages>
<wls:package-name>com.sun.el.*</wls:package-name>
<wls:package-name>javax.el.*</wls:package-name>
<wls:package-name>com.sun.faces.*</wls:package-name>
<wls:package-name>javax.faces.*</wls:package-name>
</wls:prefer-application-packages>
</wls:container-descriptor>
</wls:weblogic-web-app>
The following exception is thrown trying to run a page with an parameterized method call in EL
com.sun.el.parser.ParseException: Encountered "(" at line 1, column 22.
Was expecting one of:
"}" ...
"." ...
"[" ...
">" ...
"gt" ...
"<" ...
"lt" ...
">=" ...
"ge" ...
"<=" ...
"le" ...
"==" ...
"eq" ...
"!=" ...
"ne" ...
"&&" ...
"and" ...
"||" ...
"or" ...
"*" ...
"+" ...
"-" ...
"?" ...
"/" ...
"div" ...
"%" ...
"mod" ...
at com.sun.el.parser.ELParser.generateParseException(ELParser.java:2143)
at com.sun.el.parser.ELParser.jj_consume_token(ELParser.java:2025)
at com.sun.el.parser.ELParser.DeferredExpression(ELParser.java:113)
at com.sun.el.parser.ELParser.CompositeExpression(ELParser.java:40)
at com.sun.el.lang.ExpressionBuilder.createNodeInternal(ExpressionBuilder.java:173)
Changing the weblogic.xml <container-descriptor> to
<wls:container-descriptor>
<wls:prefer-web-inf-classes>true</wls:prefer-web-inf-classes>
</wls:container-descriptor>
yields the same exception above, untill I add the following to the web.xml
<context-param>
<param-name>com.sun.faces.expressionFactory</param-name>
<param-value>com.sun.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl</param-value>
</context-param>
Then the exception thrown changes to
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.el.ELResolver.invoke(Ljavax/el/ELContext;Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/Object;[Ljava/lang/Class;[Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;
at com.sun.el.parser.AstValue.getValue(AstValue.java:111)
at com.sun.el.parser.AstValue.getValue(AstValue.java:163)
at com.sun.el.ValueExpressionImpl.getValue(ValueExpressionImpl.java:219)
at com.sun.faces.facelets.el.ELText$ELTextVariable.writeText(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.facelets.el.ELText$ELTextComposite.writeText(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.facelets.compiler.TextInstruction.write(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.facelets.compiler.UIInstructions.encodeBegin(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.renderkit.html_basic.HtmlBasicRenderer.encodeRecursive(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.renderkit.html_basic.GroupRenderer.encodeChildren(Unknown Source)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeChildren(Unknown Source)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(Unknown Source)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.application.view.FaceletViewHandlingStrategy.renderView(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.application.view.MultiViewHandler.renderView(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.RenderResponsePhase.execute(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.Phase.doPhase(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(Unknown Source)
at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(Unknown Source)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:301)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestEventsFilter.doFilter(RequestEventsFilter.java:27)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.wrapRun(WebAppServletContext.java:3730)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3696)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:120)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2273)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:2179)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.run(ServletRequestImpl.java:1490)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:256)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:221)
I don't understand how weblogic is behaving, the same steps worked with other develobers as in the second answer in this question

Answer 1

Here is my workaround for EL in the old weblogic:
Add artifact from here as a dependency https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/releases/org/jboss/el/jboss-el/2.0.2.CR1/
Add to web.xml
<context-param>
<param-name>com.sun.faces.expressionFactory</param-name>
<param-value>org.jboss.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl</param-value>
</context-param>
Enjoy parameterized method calls. No other configuration required (no library-refs, no prefer-application-packages, no prefer-web-inf-classes)

Answer 2

I ran into a similar error trying to deploy JSF 2.2 in WebLogic 12.1.3. The accepted answer didn't quite suffice, or at least it lead to other errors. The following did the trick:
web/pom.xml:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
<artifactId>jsf-api</artifactId>
<version>2.2.13</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
<artifactId>jsf-impl</artifactId>
<version>2.2.13</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.el</groupId>
<artifactId>el-api</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
<artifactId>el-impl</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.el</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.el-api</artifactId>
<version>2.2.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.faces</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.faces-api</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
</dependency>
weblogic-application:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<weblogic-application
xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-application"
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/javaee_5.xsd
http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-application http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-application/1.4/weblogic-application.xsd">
<prefer-application-packages>
<package-name>javax.el.*</package-name>
<package-name>javax.faces.*</package-name>
<package-name>com.sun.el.*</package-name>
<package-name>com.sun.faces.*</package-name>
<package-name>com.bea.faces.*</package-name>
</prefer-application-packages>
<prefer-application-resources>
<resource-name>META-INF/services/javax.servlet.ServletContainerInitializer</resource-name>
<resource-name>META-INF/services/com.sun.faces.*</resource-name>
</prefer-application-resources>
</weblogic-application>
There are more details in this post https://roundwheeltech.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/deploying-a-jsf-2-2-to-weblogic-12-1-3/.

Answer 3

I have found a bit of a work around on the Oracle forums, it encapsulates the WAR in an EAR and uses the EAR's weblogic-application.xml to basically enforce the same package references but apparently this time weblogic honors the preferences and it works fine.
Still don't know how to do that with only a WAR file.
Solution posted on the forums
For me the following worked:
Weblogic 10.3.5.0
I have a JavaEE application with both ejbs in EJB container and
Facelets in Web container.
I added /META_INF/weblogic-application.xml :
<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'windows-1252'?>
<weblogic-application xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-application http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-application/1.1/weblogic-application.xsd"
xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-application">
<prefer-application-packages>
<package-name>com.sun.el.*</package-name>
<package-name>javax.el.*</package-name>
</prefer-application-packages>
</weblogic-application>
Included el-api-2.2.jar and el-impl-2.2.jar to the WEB-INF/lib
library.
it works, it does not work for me when using the weblogic.xml
Thank you "965902" whoever you are !