Nulls

[Doug Lea]

On 09/23/12 09:34, Remi Forax wrote:
> On 09/23/2012 03:12 PM, Doug Lea wrote:

>> It encounters the same antipattern seen when you
>> need to establish that a Map key has no mapping:
>>  if (map.get(k) == null)     // don't know if there is a mapping
>>     if (!map.containsKey(k)) // so recheck

>
> yes, for Map, we need a getEntry() but introducing it now as a default method
> will have the same problem that the default implementation is not atomic.

Mostly an aside: Without further guarantees, even getEntry
encounters problems:
   Map.Entry e = map.getEntry(k);
   // ...
   if (e.getValue() == null) // was e removed or is value null?

In j.u.c ConcurrentMaps.entrySet().iterators, that return
Entry objects, we guarantee snapshot semantics, which along with
no-nulls rule, removes this uncertainty. Entry.setValue is
still under-constrained though -- we do write-through, which
revives an entry if had been removed.

-Doug