non-blocking channel Infinite loop in java.util.Scanner

[Alan Bateman]

On 05/06/2012 11:00, Rémi Forax wrote:
> One of my student find a bug in the implementation of Scanner,
> that allows you to use a non blocking channel as input of a Scanner.
>
> The Scanner uses Channels.newReader() to create a Reader
> from a channel which itself create a StreamDecoder.
>
> In that case, StreamDecoder.impReader() goes into an infinite loop
> because impReader() calls readBytes() that does nothing
> if channel.read() returns zero.
>
> The javadoc of Channels.newReader() clearly states that
> it should throw a IllegalBlockingModeException but
> there is no code that checks that.
>
> I think a way to solve the problem is to insert a code
> that check the blocking state in Channels.newWriter().
>
>   if (ch instanceof SelectableChannel) {
>             SelectableChannel sc = (SelectableChannel)ch;
>             if (!sc.isBlocking())
>                     throw new IllegalBlockingModeException();
>             }
>    }
This could be fixed in Channels.newReader or in StreamDecoder, the 
former would be consistent with Channels.newWriter. I guess you know 
this already, but you will need to synchronize on the selectable 
channel's blockingLock to ensure that the blocking mode doesn't change.

I've created a bug for this:

7174305: (ch) Channels.newReader doesn't throw IllegalBlockingMode if 
channel is configured non-blocking

-Alan.