taskdef class com.sun.tools.ws.ant.WsImport cannot be found Following “The java web services tutorial”

Question

I saw the same issue in many different locations and even after a good portion of googling, I could not resolve it. What I am trying to do (the bigger picture) is to go through

Answer 1

You can fix the problem in Netbeans x.y as follows:

1. Go to Tools->Options->Java->Ant.
2. Click on "Add JAR/ZIP..." under the Classpath section
3. Navigate to "C:\Program Files\NetBeans x.y\enterprise\modules\ext\metro\"
4. Select all files.
5. Click OK, and try the import/regenerate again.

where x.y = 7.1, 7.2, 8.0 etc

Answer 2

Well, apparently a link to a website with the solution to this issue is unacceptable, so I'll paste the answer here:

<property name="BUILD_LIBS" location="C:/Projects/Build/Libs/" />

<taskdef name="wsimport" classname="com.sun.tools.ws.ant.WsImport">
    <classpath>
        <pathelement location="${BUILD_LIBS}/jaxws-ri/lib/jaxws-tools.jar"/>
    </classpath>
</taskdef>

The issue is due to the relevant jaxws jar not being in the class path see the pathelement node above. Adding the jar to the classpath resolves the issue.

Answer 3

I fully support non-IDE development, especially when trying to learn something ;). Try starting with this simple build file (use the actual location of your JAX-WS RI install):

<project name="jaxws-tutorial" default="wsimport">

    <property name="jaxws.home" location="D:/jaxws-ri-2_2_1"/>

    <path id="wsimport.classpath">
        <fileset dir="${jaxws.home}/lib" includes="jaxws-tools.jar"/>
    </path>

    <taskdef name="wsimport" classname="com.sun.tools.ws.ant.WsImport" classpathref="wsimport.classpath"/>

    <target name="wsimport">
        <wsimport>
            <arg value="-version"/>
        </wsimport>
    </target>

</project>

If you just run ant, you should see some output like the following:

wsimport:
 [wsimport] Consider using <depends>/<produces> so that wsimport won't do unnecessary compilation
 [wsimport] JAX-WS RI 2.2.1-b01-

Since it looks like you're using Java 6, pay attention to "Running on JDK6".

Answer 4

I had the same problem after testing Netbeans 11 and then going back to Netbeans 8.2. The solution was the file

ProjectName\nbproject\private\private.properties

that one had an entry

user.properties.file=XXXX\\AppData\\Roaming\\NetBeans\\11.0\\build.properties

changing it back to the correct installation

user.properties.file=XXXX\\AppData\\Roaming\\NetBeans\\8.2\\build.properties

solved the problem. For some projects Netbeans popped up a dialogbox "The project ProjectName uses build.properties from another Netbeans installation", then click "Use this installation".

Answer 5

To get past this error we need to use Tools->Options, click Miscellaneous, and in the Ant tab use Add Jar/ZIP to locate and add the libraries webservices-tools.jar and webservices-rt.jar in the directory

Answer 6

I changed the classname="com.sun.tools.ws.ant.WsImport" to classname="com.sun.tools.ws.WsImport", which fixed this issue for me.