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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LANG-842?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13471433#comment-13471433
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Duncan Jones commented on LANG-842:
-----------------------------------
The {{equals}} methods must return {{false}}, [by
contract|http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html#equals%28java.lang.Object%29]:
bq. For any non-null reference value {{x, x.equals(null)}} should return
{{false}}.
This makes sense, as nothing equals null - the correct answer is returned.
But for all other methods, it's quite standard to throw a runtime exception on
a null argument. Take, for example, {{DateUtils.truncatedCompareTo}} - by its
very design, the method must return a verdict on the differences between the
two objects. There is no value that would be appropriate when one of the
arguments is null. (You could argue a corner case when both arguments are null,
but that's it).
Personally I would prefer to see {{NullPointerException}}, but I suspect this
might be related to how the {{Validate}} class used to work pre 3.0.
> Lack of consistency in comparaison api
> --------------------------------------
>
> Key: LANG-842
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LANG-842
> Project: Commons Lang
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Components: lang.*, lang.time.*
> Affects Versions: 3.2
> Reporter: Pier-Luc Caron St-Pierre
> Priority: Trivial
>
> The comparaison api is lacking of consistency with null.
> Few instances :
> org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils#equals returns false if one of the
> parameter is null.
> org.apache.commons.lang3.ObjectUtils#equals returns false if one of the
> parameter is null.
> org.apache.commons.lang3.time.DateUtils#truncatedCompareTo throws
> IllegalArgumentException if one of the parameter is null
> org.apache.commons.lang3.time.DateUtils#isSameInstant throws
> IllegalArgumentException if one of the parameter is null
> I do not have any suggestion to fix that problem because any solution would
> break backward compatibility.
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