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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LANG-753?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13188829#comment-13188829
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J. Nathaniel Sloan commented on LANG-753:
-----------------------------------------
+1 for Oliver here. By making this change, you've abandoned me at version 2.6.
The first test case I write for most methods is simply that it behaves
rationally when presented with null input, especially where null is disallowed
by the API. Therefore, I have an entire suite of tests written to look for
IllegalArgumentException.
Naturally, I could change the tests, but why would I do so? Unless I'm willing
to rewrite them all to check the message text, I can't differentiate between a
NullPointerException thrown by the Validate method and one generated by making
a method call on the null reference.
Version 2.6 performs two tasks: provides a readable message, which is good for
log files and defect analysis, and changes the exception type from what you
would otherwise get, which is good for automated testing. Version 3.x does
only the former.
Finally, +1 again for the idea that just because Oracle does something doesn't
make it a best practice. It was wrong when they wrote it into the spec for
Comparator, and it's wrong now, for exactly the reasons in Oliver's first
comment. NullPointerException should be reserved exclusively for making method
calls using null references. If I wanted a NullPointerException, I'd just omit
the call to Validate and let the code continue.
I hope you'll reconsider, and thanks for listening.
> Validate.notNull() should throw IllegalArgumentException but throws
> NullPointerException
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: LANG-753
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LANG-753
> Project: Commons Lang
> Issue Type: Bug
> Components: lang.*
> Affects Versions: 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.1
> Reporter: Oliver Siegmar
>
> Validate.notNull() throws an IllegalArgumentException in commons-lang 2.6,
> but in 3.0.1 it throws a NullPointerException. I can't find any note about
> this in the release notes. I think this is a regression, because it could
> break others code.
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