printing an object whose toString() method returns null

[Travis Stevens <Tr...@noaa.gov>]

I did something pretty stupid by having an Object.toString() method 
return a null.

When I tried to print that object using 
org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspWriterImpl.print(Object o) I received a 
NullPointerException.  This is because the print method uses 
String.valueOf(Object o) method to convert the value into the null 
object and then calls JspWriterImpl.write(String s).  This write method 
tries to get the length of this null string and a null pointer is thrown.

Now I know that this is a programming mistake, but it would have been 
nicer if a more specific error message was thrown.  This can be easily 
accomplished by adding a check to the print(Object o) method that checks 
the result of String.valueOf().

Unfortunately, the Jsp 2.0 specification does not address this issue.  
The print(Object o) is not documented to throw a NullPointerException, 
only an IOException.

Any comments?

-Trav



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