Re: [Error handling] NullPointer or IllegalArgument?

[Jason Dillon]

NPE should not be an IAE because it does not really fall directly with 
in the domain of arguments.  For example if something returns a 
String[], but String[4] is null when it should not be then it would be 
appropriate to toss a NPE, though it better have a reasonable message, 
else it is not very useful.

I think the original point of this thread was to determine if IAE or 
NPE should be used when an argument to a method was null, I suggest 
using NAE (in geronimo common) for this, which is an IAE.

However in the example above if the array was a method argument, then 
an IAE would be better suited, though I would still suggest NAE and add 
the index which was null for clarity.

BTW, I am not sure why I implemented NAE using an Object for index... 
seems silly now that I think about it, but no time to fix at the moment.

--jason
On Thursday, August 14, 2003, at 04:41  PM, Adrian Jackson wrote:
Confusion between NullPointerException and NullArgumentException, I
think. :)
FWIW, it would *not* have been nice if NPE were an IAE - in a lot of
cases where it's generated, it's not because of an argument. In fact
it's almost never generated directly as the result of an illegal
argument.
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Dillon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 14 August 2003 10:31
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Error handling] NullPointer or IllegalArgument?

Note on further checking - NPE is not an IAE. They're both
RuntimeExceptions but thats about it. Sorry Jason I think you're
mistaken - but it would have been nice though.
Huh?  Was there another Jason on this thread...
--jason