I had a look at the source code around this issue. Here is a summary: The 'Cannot load JDBC driver class 'null'' message is coming from the createDataSource method in DBCP. The method throws an exception for driverClass = Class.forName(driverClassName). So, from this I think I can assume the problem is that the driverClassName is not being set. In the struts code, the setting of the driver class name is contained within the GenericDataSource object with the call bds.setDriverClassName(getDriverClass()). Bds is a BasicDataSource that is instantiated within the GenericDataSource context. GenericDataSource has been deprecated, so now the question becomes how to set the driver class name for a basic data source using the struts-config.xml file. Looking at DataSourceConfig.java, there is a big warning at the top of the file stating that "The properties of this configuration bean are recognized by the default data source implementation, but some or all of them may be ignored by custom data source implementations." The default source implementation is GenericDataSource, not BasicDataSource. So, I think this is the issue. GenericDataSources are deprecated in favour of BasicDataSources, but BasicDataSources are not supported in the struts-config.xml. So, I removed the type= from the data-source and this error message goes away! The moral: Just because something is deprecated doesn't mean it has a working replacement. ;-) -david-
