A java.lang.IllegalArgumentException when Using SpringMVC @PathVariable

Another exception happened to me today while im deploying my application to Tomcat 7, somehow the error (again) never happen on my IDE. The error is related to Spring MVC’s @PathVariable. Below is the complete stacktrace for the error.

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Name for argument type [java.lang.String] not available, and parameter name information not found in class file either.
	org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:894)
	org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:778)
	javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:621)
	javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
	com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.filter.PageFilter.parsePage(PageFilter.java:119)
	com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.filter.PageFilter.doFilter(PageFilter.java:55)
	org.springframework.security.web.FilterChainProxy$VirtualFilterChain .doFilter(FilterChainProxy.java:330)
	org.springframework.security.web.access.intercept.FilterSecurityInterceptor .invoke(FilterSecurityInterceptor.java:118)
	org.springframework.security.web.access.intercept.FilterSecurityInterceptor .doFilter(FilterSecurityInterceptor.java:84)

And this is the suspected method which raise exception,

    @RequestMapping(value ="/baculsoft/news/view/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String newsView(ModelMap modelMap, 
                        @PathVariable String id) {
        modelMap.put("news", newsService.get(id);
        return "news/view";
    }

The workaround is actually simple, below is how to deal with it,

    @RequestMapping(value ="/baculsoft/news/view/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String newsView(ModelMap modelMap, 
                        @PathVariable("id") String id) {
        modelMap.put("news", newsService.get(id);
        return "news/view";
    }

Actually very simple workaround, but since i have hundreds of methods using @PathVariable, it’s not so simple anymore. And the weird thing is, the .war exported from Eclipse IDE run perfectly, only .war created from Netbeans that raise exception. I dont know why, but somehow Netbeans’ ant create a different war compared to Eclipse’s war file.

After sometimes googling, i found out that it happens due to javac’s debug parameter on Netbeans’ ant, changing “debug” default value into “on” on Netbeans’ build-impl.xml makes my war file run perfectly on Tomcat 7. Well i hope it hepled others, cheers (B)