Re: Why is Java lying?

I'm trying to compile a very simple JSP page on Tomcat 5.5, JDK 1.5

<%@ page import="java.util.*" %>
<%
   Object v = new String("b");
   session.setAttribute("a", v);

   Enumeration e = session.getAttributeNames();
   while (e.hasMoreElements()) {
       String attr = (String) e.nextElement();
       String v1 = session.getAttribute(attr);
       String v2 = session.getValue(attr);
       out.println("attr: " + attr + " v1:" + v1 + " v2:" + v2);
   } // while
%>

but I'm getting this compile error:

An error occurred at line: 2 in the jsp file: /session_vars.jsp
Generated servlet error:
Type mismatch: cannot convert from Object to String

First off, the line number is incorrect (line 2 is "<%")