ServiceLoader.load(Class, ClassLoader) bug

[Peter Levart]

Hi,

The javadoc for java.util.ServiceLoader.load(Class service, ClassLoader 
loader) method says about it's parameters:

     * @param  service
     *         The interface or abstract class representing the service
     *
     * @param  loader
     *         The class loader to be used to load 
provider-configuration files
     *         and provider classes, or <tt>null</tt> if the system class
     *         loader (or, failing that, the bootstrap class loader) is 
to be
     *         used

So one might think that calling:

    ServiceLoader.load(service, null);

is equivalent to:

    ServiceLoader.load(service, ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader());


But it is not. Either this is a bug in ServiceLoader or javadoc has to 
be changed.

If null is specified as ClassLoader then ServiceLoader locates 
META-INF/services/interface.name resources using system ClassLoader 
(using ClassLoader.getSystemResources), but loads implementation classes 
using bootstrap ClassLoader (using Class.forName(className, true, null)).

If this is not the expected behaviour then the fix is simple (in the 
private constructor of ServiceLoader[217]):

-    loader = cl;
+   loader = cl == null ? ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader() : cl;



Regards, Peter