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Home » Language IDEs » Java Development Tools (JDT) » Java8 Nullness type qualifiers and Maps(Trying to understand how Eclipse nullness analysis works with Maps)
icon5.gif  Java8 Nullness type qualifiers and Maps [message #1386001] Thu, 12 June 2014 20:21 Go to next message
Kivanc Muslu is currently offline Kivanc MusluFriend
Messages: 153
Registered: November 2010
Senior Member
Hi all,

I am trying to understand (and resolve warnings and errors) how to use nullness type qualifiers (improved nullness annotations in Eclipse) with Maps. Here is an example:

Map<@NonNull String, @NonNull String> map = new HashMap<>();

The above code, defines a hash map where keys and values cannot be null (as expected).

map.put("key", "value"); // works as expected
map.put("key2", null); // raises a warning as expected

for (String key: map.keySet())
    key.toString(); // works okay since keys cannot be null.

for (String value: map.valueSet())
    value.toString(); // works okay since values cannot be null.


Here is where it gets tricky:
String temp = map.get("key3");
if (temp != null)
    temp.toString();

Here, for the "if" check, Eclipse raises a warning saying that the check is redundant. So, for some reason, although Map.get(..) could clearly return null (as with this case), the analysis infers the extended type of "temp" as @NonNull.

Am I missing something simple, or is this an a bug in Eclipse nullness analysis?

Thanks and best regards,

[Updated on: Thu, 12 June 2014 20:24]

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Re: Java8 Nullness type qualifiers and Maps [message #1386003 is a reply to message #1386001] Thu, 12 June 2014 20:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Stephan Herrmann is currently offline Stephan HerrmannFriend
Messages: 1853
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
That's a problem in interface Map:

This declaration
V get(Object key);


must actually be changed to
@Nullable V get(Object key);


If you compile, e.g., HashMap in the existing form, with our null analysis enabled, you get:

    public V get(Object key) {
        Node<K,V> e;
        return (e = getNode(hash(key), key)) == null ? null : e.value;
                                                       ^^^^
    }

Null type mismatch (type annotations): 'null' is not compatible to the free type variable 'V'



Explanation: the current API promises: whatever type you supply for 'V', get() will always return a value of that type. This is a strong promise, which the implementation does not realize (it unduly assumes, that 'V' is always a nullable type), hence the signature should weaken the promise.

best,
Stephan

PS: This leads us to the one big null-related project which I hope to address during the Mars-cycle: https://bugs.eclipse.org/331651
Re: Java8 Nullness type qualifiers and Maps [message #1386004 is a reply to message #1386003] Thu, 12 June 2014 20:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kivanc Muslu is currently offline Kivanc MusluFriend
Messages: 153
Registered: November 2010
Senior Member
Hi Stephan,

Thanks for the explanation. I am actually looking forward to the ability to annotate external libraries for nullness analysis, so it is good to hear that this is already in motion.

I think I understand the issue. Do you have a suggestion for a workaround?

At the moment, I decided to declare all maps with @Nullable values although they never contain "null" values. For example,

Map<String, @Nullable String> map = new HashMap<>();
map.put("key", "value");
String temp = map.get("key2");
if (temp != null) // This is okay since values are nullable.
    temp.toString();


However, this leads to another (kind of) problem. If I want to use valueSet(), then I need to Suppress Warnings.
for (String value: map.values())
    value.toString(); // Raises an issue since value could be "null" (although in my program it never is).


As you can see, I actually lie about the type of the map so that I can get the extra check in the get(..) method. However, this comes with the price that I have to suppress warnings each time I use values(..).

Can you see a better workaround?

Thanks and best regards,
Re: Java8 Nullness type qualifiers and Maps [message #1386005 is a reply to message #1386004] Thu, 12 June 2014 20:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Stephan Herrmann is currently offline Stephan HerrmannFriend
Messages: 1853
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Depending on style and frequency of you using "get()" this might be viable for now:

@Nullable String temp = map.get("key3");
if (temp != null)
    temp.toString();


But surely this misses the point of letting the compiler check that every result from get() is null-checked.
You'd be responsible for manually marking each result from a get() call as @Nullable.

Stephan
Re: Java8 Nullness type qualifiers and Maps [message #1386007 is a reply to message #1386005] Thu, 12 June 2014 21:00 Go to previous message
Kivanc Muslu is currently offline Kivanc MusluFriend
Messages: 153
Registered: November 2010
Senior Member
Losing the compiler support to catch the instances where I forgot to have the null check was the exact reason where I decided to go with the more verbose (and kind of incorrect) annotation type.

Thanks for the suggestion!
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