The first step to resolving this issue, is to completely ignore the hint "-source 1.5 to enable generics". That message will take you nowhere! The reason being that it originates from the javac compiler, while you need to configure the jasper JSP compiler. This is fortunately quite easy, although finding out on the Tomcat site is quite convoluted. All you need to do is to edit your TOMCAT_INSTALL\conf\web.xml. Add to the org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet the following lines
<init-param>
<param-name>compilerSourceVM</param-name>
<param-value>1.5</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>compilerTargetVM</param-name>
<param-value>1.5</param-value>
</init-param>
such that the servlet looks something like the following
[web.xml]
<servlet>
<servlet-name>jsp</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>fork</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>xpoweredBy</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>compilerSourceVM</param-name>
<param-value>1.5</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>compilerTargetVM</param-name>
<param-value>1.5</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>3</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
You have now configured your Tomcat JSP server...
Configuring Eclipse
The EE edition of Eclipse has a nice feature of enabling you to create a Dynamic web project - essentially an exploded war file and manage the server instance for you and set up debugging. Convenient once you know how it works. Basically what the standard setup does, is that it copies the Tomcat configuration files from your install directory onto some obscure path similar to c:\workspace.metadata.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0\conf\ The first thing to realize is that it copies the files from your installed Tomcat directory quite frequently, so editing your web.xml in this directory as instructed above will only work for a short time.
You may also try editing the web.xml under the Servers project Eclipse installs when you setup your first server. I had a very hard time making Eclipse pick up changes in this file..
Instead, simply delete your server instance and re-create it. Your changes will now have been picked up and you are ready to go!
