RFR: JDK-8011136 - FileInputStream.available and skip inconsistencies

[Alan Bateman]

On 10/05/2013 22:20, Dan Xu wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The FileInputStream.available() method can return a negative value 
> when the file position is beyond the endof afile. This is an 
> unspecified behaviour that has the potential to break applications 
> that expect available to return a value of 0 or greater. The 
> FileInputStream.skip(long) method allows a negative value as its 
> parameter. This conflicts with the specifications of InputStream and 
> FileInputStream classes.
>
> They are both long standing behaviours. In the fix, available() has 
> been changed to only return 0 or positive values. And for the 
> skip(long) method, due to the compatibility concern, its behaviour 
> will not be changed. Instead, the related java specs are going to be 
> changed to describe its current behaviour.
>
> bug: http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=8011136
> webrev: http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~dxu/8011136/webrev.00/
>
> Thanks for your review!
>
> -Dan
Thanks for following up on this one. Overall I agree with the approach, 
it specifies skip to match long standing behavior and fixes available to 
not return negative values.

Just on wording, it might be better if the new statement in 
InputStream.skip didn't start with "But". How about "Subclasses may ..." 
as this would be consistent with exiting wording in this class.

For FileInputStream then the statement on how "available" behaves should 
probably move to the available javadoc. Something like "Returns 0 when 
the file position is beyond EOF" should be fine.

-Alan.