Re: [cp-patches] Patch: replace NullPointerException with ClassCastException

[Mark Wielaard]

On Sat, 2005-09-17 at 18:25 -0700, Anthony Green wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-09-18 at 00:51 +0200, Mark Wielaard wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 17:56 -0700, Anthony Green wrote:
> > > This doesn't really fix a bug.  FindBugs was complaining about a
> > > potential null dereference.  This patch essentially turns a potential
> > > NullPointerException into a ClassCastException, which is no worse - and
> > > quiets FindBugs on this issue.
> > 
> > Both are wrong. If result is null (both conditions fail) the method
> > should throw a NoSuchAlgorithmException.
> 
> The way I read it is if both conditions fail then our library is busted
> and we should throw a runtime exception, and not the expected
> NoSuchAlgorithmException.  That would just mask a problem.

Our library or the given Provider. I would still throw the
NoSuchAlgorithmException either with a chained exception cause or an
appropriate message. But I don't feel too strongly about it. The
NullPointerException was the worst thing we could throw since that
doesn't really give the user any information what went wrong. So fixing
that is a good thing whatever way it is solved.

Cheers,

Mark

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