java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getContextPath()Ljava/lang/String;

Solution 1:

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getContextPath()Ljava/lang/String;

That method was added in Servlet 2.5.

So this problem can have at least 3 causes:

1. The servlet container does not support Servlet 2.5.
2. The web.xml is not declared conform Servlet 2.5 or newer.
3. The webapp's runtime classpath is littered with servlet container specific JAR files of a different servlet container make/version which does not support Servlet 2.5.

To solve it,

1. Make sure that your servlet container supports at least Servlet 2.5. That are at least Tomcat 6, Glassfish 2, JBoss AS 4.1, etcetera. Tomcat 5.5 for example supports at highest Servlet 2.4. If you can't upgrade Tomcat, then you'd need to downgrade Spring to a Servlet 2.4 compatible version.
2. Make sure that the root declaration of web.xml complies Servlet 2.5 (or newer, at least the highest whatever your target runtime supports). For an example, see also somewhere halfway our servlets wiki page.
3. Make sure that you don't have any servlet container specific libraries like servlet-api.jar or j2ee.jar in /WEB-INF/lib or even worse, the JRE/lib or JRE/lib/ext. They do not belong there. This is a pretty common beginner's mistake in an attempt to circumvent compilation errors in an IDE, see also How do I import the javax.servlet API in my Eclipse project?.