How to fix Commons Lang “Package Does Not Exist” Error

Tremaine Eto

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Jan 5 · 1 min read

If you’re here, then you probably were met with a Java stack trace that has lines similar to this in it:

package org.apache.commons.lang does not exist...static import only from classes and interfaces

I saw this in a few Spring Boot applications with Maven, and the good news is that the fix should be easy.

The fix

In your source code, do a global search for the following import prefix:

import static org.apache.commons.lang

Then, replace all instances of that with the following:

import static org.apache.commons.lang3

Example

Let’s say a program has the following Commons Lang import statements:

import static org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils.isBlank;
import static org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils.isNotBlank;

Simply put a 3 after lang. Your final import statements will then look like this:

import static org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.isBlank;
import static org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.isNotBlank;

Your app should now build.

Why?

Basically, Commons Lang 3.x brought in this new package naming with the 3 in lang3. More details on that as well as what else changed from 2.x to 3.x are here.