Re: Patch: String.toString()

[Bryce McKinlay <bryce@albatross.co.nz>]

Tom Tromey wrote:

> FWIW I'm not entirely certain this patch is the way to go.
> Instrumenting code all over libjava to check for null seems tedious
> and error-prone.  If users have to do this, too, then it is worse than
> that -- it is an actual bug.

You're right. Now that I'm fully awake I realize that this is definitely
a (serious) compiler bug. Here's a more self contained test:

public final class Final
{
  public static void main(String args[])
    {
      Final f = null;
      try
        {
          f.doSomething();
        }
      catch (NullPointerException x)
        {
          System.out.println("NullPointerException - ok");
        }
    }

  void doSomething()
    {
      System.out.println("This should not happen");
    }
}

I suppose that the compiler just needs to insert a test for this==null at
the start of each final method? I will revoke my patch as soon as
somebody comes up with a fix for this.

regards

  [ bryce ]