Just a followup: > On 14 Aug 2018, at 2:25 PM, ocs@ocs <o...@ocs.cz> wrote: > > what I would like to see in Groovy would be a way to intentionally switch to > the non-NPE null-propagating behaviour where needed by very explicit using of > an appropriate annotation.
... considering that, instead of a simple annotation, one with a boolean parameter to switch the behaviour on and off as needed might be better: === @ImplicitSafeNavigation(true) class Foo { static foo(a,b,c,d,e) { a.bar+b*c[d]<<e.bax() // just e.g.; would work with *any* expression which NPEs today } @ImplicitSafeNavigation(false) bar(a) { a.bar } } assert null == Foo.foo(null,null,null,null,null) Foo.bar(null) // throws NPE === > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "ocs@ocs" <o...@ocs.cz> > Subject: suggestion: ImplicitSafeNavigation annotation > Date: 14 August 2018 at 1:28:01 PM CEST > To: dev@groovy.apache.org > Reply-To: dev@groovy.apache.org > > Gentlemen, > > some NPE-related problems of today brought me to re-interate one of my older > suggestions. > > We have the so-called “safe navigation”[*], which in some cases allows a null > to be propagated out of an expression instead of throwing a NPE. At the > moment, it can be triggered for a particular sub-expression (like > property/method-call and, as of 3, newly also indexing) using a question mark > (e.g., “foo?.bar()” or “foo?[bar]”). > > Do please correct me if I am wrong, but far as I know, there still are > expressions which do not allow the “safe mode”, e.g., arithmetic (“a+b” etc). > Furthermore, there are cases when one simply wants a bigger block of code to > contain only null-propagating expressions and never NPE; in such case, using > the question mark syntax is both inconvenient and error-prone (for it is very > easy to forget one of the lot of question marks needed in such a code, and > then get an uncaught unwanted NPE). > > For these reasons, I would suggest adding a new annotation, whose name might > be e.g., “ImplicitSafeNavigation”; it would simply force a null-propagation > to be implicitly and automatically used for *all* expressions in the > annotated scope, i.e., NPE would never be thrown for them; for example: > > === > @ImplicitSafeNavigation class Foo { > static foo(a,b,c,d,e) { > a.bar+b*c[d]<<e.bax() // just e.g.; would work with *any* expression which > NPEs today > } > } > assert null == Foo.foo(null,null,null,null,null) > === > > I wonder whether this enhancement would be possible to implement in some > forthcoming Groovy release? Myself, I believe it would help tremendously. > > If feasible, then it is for a further discussion whether in the scope of this > annotation > (a) a safe-navigation syntax (“foo?.bar”) should be ignored as superfluous; > (b) or, whether in this scope it should reverse the behaviour to trigger an > NPE anyway; > (c) or, whether it should be ignored as (a), and aside of that it would be > worth the effort (and technically possible) to add another syntax to force > NPE over a particular sub-expression (e.g., “foo!.bar”). > > Thanks and all the best, > OC > > [*] The name might not be quite apt, for propagating a null is not inherently > safer than NPEing; those are simply two different approaches, both of which > serve best in different circumstances. A better name would be something like > “null-propagating” or “non-NPE” mode, I guess. Myself, I don't think we > should change the name though, for all are used to it. >