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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JEXL-113?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13053809#comment-13053809
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Max Tardiveau commented on JEXL-113:
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Hi Henri,
we love Jexl! It's not uncommon for this type of library to be widely used, but
very much under-recognized. Please know that we use it, and we like it.
After some more thinking about this, I can now see that handling null values is
a challenge.
Maybe we could have the option to turn off the dot operator? That would allow
us to resolve the dot operator in our context class, and perhaps come up with a
way to handle nulls (e.g. return zero instead of null). This can be done now
with proxy classes, or by encapsulating beans, but that seems like a lot of
work.
In the meantime, we're going to turn on silent mode, and let nulls be treated
as they are now.
Thanks for a valuable library!
-- Max
> Dot notation behaves unexpectedly with null values
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: JEXL-113
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JEXL-113
> Project: Commons JEXL
> Issue Type: Bug
> Affects Versions: 2.0.1
> Environment: JDK 1.6
> Reporter: Max Tardiveau
>
> When a variable of the form a.b is evaluated, the context is asked first for
> the value of a. That value is then asked for the value of b.
> So far, so good: this is exactly what you'd expect from the dot operator.
> But if the value of b is null, the context is then asked for the value of
> a.b, in other words the dot operator is ignored and "a.b" is considered to be
> a single variable.
> This is at best confusing. Granted, this can be avoided with the a['b']
> notation, but that's clumsy.
> I assume this is an attempt to support both the dot operator and ant-style
> variables. I don't think you can have both and remain sane.
> Suggestion: either document this behavior, or make it an option. My vote
> would be to just use the value returned, even if it's null. Either dot is an
> operator, or it's not. Perhaps make that configurable?
> Thanks!
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