RFR: 8177136: Caller sensitive methods Logger.getLogger, Logger.getAnonymousLogger, and System.getLogger should throw IllegalCallerException if there is no caller on the stack.

[Daniel Fuchs]

On 20/03/2017 12:37, David Holmes wrote:
> What about those API's says there has to be a Java frame higher up. Why
> can't an attached thread request a reference to the logger?

Hi David,

Did you look at the webrev?

1582      * @throws IllegalCallerException if there is no caller frame, i.e.
1583      *         when this {@code getLogger} method is called from JNI
1584      *         and there is no Java frame on the stack.

This says there must be a frame higher up.

In the case of System.getLogger then the reason is that this
method eventually calls  LoggerFinder.getLogger(name, module),
which requires a non null module.

I don't see any reason why we should accept null or why we should
substitute 'null' with a (randomly picked?) module, especially
since this looks like a pretty unusual corner case which can be
easily worked around (in this case) when the behavior of the method
in the presence of a null caller is known.

best regards,

-- daniel