ClassNotFoundException whereas the JAR is here!

[sarbogast]

I have a classloading issue with an EAR application. It contains:

• 
  
• spring-2.0.7.jar
  
• myapp-core.jar
  
• myapp-web.war
  
  
  In myapp-web.war, there is a WEB-INF/web.xml file with the following:
  

  <web-app>
  <!-- ... -->
   <listener>
   <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
   </listener>
  
   <context-param>
   <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
   <param-value>
   classpath:applicationContext.xml
   </param-value>
   </context-param>
  </web-app>
  

  
  
  And applicationContext.xml (Spring configuration file) resides in myapp-core.jar, with the following section:
  

  <bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
   <property name="dataSource"><ref bean="dataSource"/></property>
   <property name="mappingLocations"><ref bean="hibernateMappingLocations"/></property>
   <property name="hibernateProperties"><ref bean="hibernateProperties"/></property>
   </bean>
  

  
  
  And LocalSessionFactoryBean class resides in spring-2.0.7.
  
  Yet, when I start up my application, I get the following exception:
  

  19:05:52,534 ERROR [ContextLoader] Context initialization failed
  org.springframework.beans.factory.CannotLoadBeanClassException: Cannot find class [org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean] for bean with name 'sessionFactory' defined in class path resource [applicationContext.xml]; nested exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean
  Caused by:
  java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean
   at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1358)
  ...
  

  
  
  And I can't figure out why I get this ClassNotFoundException since spring-2.0.7.jar is here, at the root of the EAR.
  
  Can somebody help me out with that, because I don't understand how EAR classpath works?

[peterj]

What are the contents of your META-INF/application.xml file? Does that file reference the spring-2.0.7.jar file?

[sarbogast]

You were right, spring-2.0.7.jar was not referenced in application.xml. Now it is and I don't have this ClassNotFoundException.
I keep getting strange Spring internal errors like "LangNamespaceHandler does not implement NamespaceHandler interface" even though it does. But I think this is a different story.

Thanks for your help.