HTTP Status 500 Error instantiating servlet class

Question

I am writing a web app and deploying it to the apache tomcat web container. I follow a simple tutorial from http://cse.csusb.edu/turner/java_web_programming/servlets/

and then end up getting this error. I am pasting snippets of and web.xml, website.xml and my code files respectively.

Structure:

web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<web-app
     xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee 
        http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd"
     version="2.4">
   <servlet>
      <servlet-name>home</servlet-name>
      <servlet-class>website.web.HomeServlet</servlet-class>
   </servlet>
   <servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-name>home</servlet-name>
      <url-pattern>/home</url-pattern>
   </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

HomeServlet.java

package website.web;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.ServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.ServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class HomeServlet extends HttpServlet {

    @Override
    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) 
               throws ServletException, IOException {
                  PrintWriter writer = resp.getWriter();
                  writer.println("<h1>Hello, World!</h1>");
               }        
}

Error:

HTTP Status 500 - Error instantiating servlet class website.web.HomeServlet

type Exception report

message Error instantiating servlet class website.web.HomeServlet

description The server encountered an internal error that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

javax.servlet.ServletException: Error instantiating servlet class website.web.HomeServlet
    org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:610)
    org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:518)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1091)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:668)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11NioProtocol.java:223)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1517)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1474)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
root cause

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: website.web.HomeServlet
    org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1305)
    org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1157)
    org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:610)
    org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:518)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1091)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:668)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11NioProtocol.java:223)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1517)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1474)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

Solution

I think somethin wrong in this section:

<servlet-class>website.web.HomeServlet</servlet-class>

Instead try:

<servlet-class>website.HomeServlet</servlet-class>