[jetty-users] NPE due to EL 3 - <c:if test="{nonExisting}> ?

[Fritz Richter <fritz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi together,

after updating the Jetty to the newest 9.1.4 version, in order to support my Spring4/Java 8 web app, I run into a strange NPE problem. 

I get this error:

java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.apache.jsp.views.secured.report.create_002delement_002dfragment_jsp._jspx_meth_c_if_0(create_002delement_002dfragment_jsp.java:315)
	at org.apache.jsp.views.secured.report.create_002delement_002dfragment_jsp._jspService(create_002delement_002dfragment_jsp.java:119)
	at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:111)
	at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:790)
	at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:411)
	at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:473)

If I am right, the problem is the el-3 library, which will treat null values in a different way. I found some issues in bug tracking systems for Tomcat, Glassfish and even in Jetty – but I was not able to figure out, how to solve this problem. 

I want to avoid writing: 

<c:if test=„${not empty nonExisting && nonExisting}“>

Is there anything I can do in order to not modify the existing JSP files?

Best

fri