RFR 7065380 : Allow Collections.sort to sort Collections.singletonList() result

[David Holmes]

On 2/03/2012 10:22 AM, Joe Darcy wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> The main body of the javadoc of method does state
>
> 176 * <p>The specified list must be modifiable, but need not be resizable.
>
> so I agree that a small javadoc update is needed to support this
> reasonable expansion of behavior.

Sorry I didn't check the spec beforehand. I agree a spec change is 
needed to match this change in behaviour. I don't see an issue with 
changing the spec to say that sort() is a no-op if the collection is 
empty or only has one element.

> A further expansion would be "The list must be modifiable if not already
> sorted," but I haven't checked to see if that would require further
> implementation changes.

I think you might need more code to implement this. You have to be able 
to test if the list is sorted if you find it is not modifiable.

> On 03/01/2012 02:02 PM, Mike Duigou wrote:
>> I always read @throws declarations as "if thrown then description was
>> the cause" rather than "will be thrown if description". A minor
>> difference in interpretation that can sometimes be useful.

This is a specification stating under what conditions exceptions _will_ 
be thrown. The JCK folks write tests to check these kinds of 
preconditions and expect to get exceptions if the stated precondition is 
not met. If you want exceptions to be "optional" then that has to be 
part of their spec.

David
-----

>>
>> For this particular case the restriction on sort() seems to serve only
>> to blunt the usefulness of Collections.emptyList and singletonList().
>> I'd prefer to bend the rules slightly rather than requiring developers
>> to use empty and singleton ArrayLists.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> On Mar 1 2012, at 13:29 , Colin Decker wrote:
>>
>>> Doesn't this break the contract of the method? It specifies that it
>>> throws UnsupportedOperationException if the specified list's
>>> list-iterator does not support the set operation. Its Javadoc body
>>> also states that the list must be modifiable. (Though sort() already
>>> succeeds for an emptyList() despite it not supporting set.) It seems
>>> to me that this just hides programmer error. Anyone who passes an
>>> unmodifiable singleton list to sort() is treating it as a modifiable
>>> list in their code. Rather than succeeding despite that, I'd think it
>>> might be preferable for the call to fail so the programmer is alerted
>>> to that error in their assumptions so they can correct it before it
>>> bites them elsewhere.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Colin
>>> 5
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Mike Duigou<mike.duigou at oracle.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> Hello all;
>>>
>>> Currently Collections.sort() refuses to sort the lists which result
>>> from calling Collections.singletonList(). This makes some sense
>>> because the singleton lists are immutable but they are also alway
>>> sorted.
>>>
>>> This patch allows Collections.sort() to be used with empty and
>>> singleton lists of all types. A short circuit return is provided for
>>> lists of length 0 and 1 as they are already sorted.
>>>
>>> WEBREV @ http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~mduigou/7065380/0/webrev/
>>>
>>> For the unit test ignore the diffs and view the "New" file--webrev
>>> doesn't understand "hg copy".
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>