[Gridsphere-users] GridSphere example: followed instructions, got same error as other people (but there is no solution in the archive)

[David E. Konerding]

Hi,

I'm trying to set up the basic GridSphere example (HelloWorld) described in
http://www.gridsphere.org/gridsphere/html/gridsphereguide.pdf

(a side comment: it's hard to cut-and-paste the text from this document 
into a file. 
Could you guys please create an HTML instead of PDF or at least make it 
so that cutting
and pasting the text doesn't cause formatting problems?)

Specifically, I created a new project exactly like the one in the 
documentation,
added all the appropriate files, deployed the example to the container, and
then tried to access to new portlet example.  I got the same sort of 
exception as many other people
when try to access the GridSphere container (which worked before I tried 
to deploy the
example):

On the web page:

null Stack Trace:
java.lang.NullPointerException at 
org.gridlab.gridsphere.services.core.registry.impl.PortletManager.addWebApp(PortletManager.java:146) 
at 
org.gridlab.gridsphere.provider.portlet.jsr.PortletServlet.service(PortletServlet.java:192) 
at

In catalina.out:
6596 [http-8080-Processor25] (PortletServlet.java:86) ERROR 
org.gridlab.gridsphere.provider.portlet.jsr.PortletServlet  - Unable to 
create por
tlet web application
Unable to load portlets from: gsexamples + due to mapping error

I see other people have reported this, but none of the responses seem to 
solve the problem.
The closest I see is:
> Hi,
>
> did you put the portlets beneath a subdirectory (namespace) called  
> 'portlets' ?If not it will have the effect you described.
> Can you doublecheck this?
>
> Oliver

This answer seems pretty vague, and not totally consistent with the 
document.
I have the following dir structure (under 
gridsphere-2.2.7/projects/gsexamples):

./build.xml
./build.properties
./src/org/gridsphere/gsexamples/portlets/HelloWorld.java
./webapp/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties
./webapp/WEB-INF/persistence/hibernate.properties
./webapp/WEB-INF/group.sample.xml
./webapp/WEB-INF/gridsphere-portlet.xml
./webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml
./webapp/WEB-INF/PortletServices.xml
./webapp/WEB-INF/layout.xml
./webapp/WEB-INF/portlet.xml
./webapp/WEB-INF/group.xml
./gridsphere_log.txt

I wonder, it does seem odd that portlet.xml contains:

 <portlet-class>
    org.gridsphere.gsexamples.HelloWorld.portlets
 </portlet-class>

instead of:
 <portlet-class>
    org.gridsphere.gsexamples.portlets.HelloWorld
 </portlet-class>

since that seems to mirror the directory structure better (I am no java 
expert, just a pattern-matcher).

I was wondering if you guys would consider posting an ultra-concise 
version of this example
(with the actual file contents) to the list.  Ideally, it would be 
checked against gridsphere-2.2.7
by you guys as you post it to ensure there are no errors in the document 
or in the file conents.

Dave