Code Review Request for 6578042

[David Holmes]

On 14/11/2011 11:19 PM, Neil Richards wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-11-14 at 10:28 +1000, David Holmes wrote:
>> On 12/11/2011 10:14 PM, Alan Bateman wrote:
>>> On 11/11/2011 19:37, Darryl Mocek wrote:
>>>> Returning null if the value is not a String gives the impression that
>>>> there was no property with that key when the property may have been
>>>> there and may in fact have been removed.
>>> That's a fair point and probably enough to conclude that this approach
>>> should be dismissed.
>>>
>>> The toString approach is inconsistent so I think this brings us back to
>>> the original suggestion which is to specify that CCE is thrown (as it
>>> always has) but without side effects (meaning it doesn't remove the
>>> property). I think this is the best we can do with this broken API.
>>
>> I tend to agree. If the value is not a string then leave it alone and
>> throw CCE.
>
> Of course, there are certain situations where the Java documentation
> guides you to specify property values which are not String objects.
>
> One that springs to my mind is the setting of "java.naming.corba.orb" to
> point to the ORB instance to be used by the JNDI/COS Naming Service
> Provider [1].

But these are not System property values being described.

David
-----


> (For those using this provider, this setting tends to be important in
> limiting the resources it consumes).
>
> So I'm not sure it's correct to assume that it is an error for Property
> settings to have non-String values.
>
> Regards, Neil
>
> [1] http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jndi/jndi-cos.html#PROP
>