[jira] [Created] (JEXL-250) Safe navigation operator

["Dmitri Blinov (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Dmitri Blinov created JEXL-250:
----------------------------------

             Summary: Safe navigation operator
                 Key: JEXL-250
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JEXL-250
             Project: Commons JEXL
          Issue Type: New Feature
    Affects Versions: 3.1
            Reporter: Dmitri Blinov


It would be more convenient for a script writer to have a kind of safe navigation operator, in the form of, for example, ({{object?.property),}} for null pointer dereferences. I think its quite a common feature of many scripting (and compiled languages) now. The safe operator should work like basic navigation operator for non null values and should short-circuit the entire expression evaluation after encountering null value.

I see the difference of new operator from the existing lenient mode evaluation in ability to explicitly define places in an expression where {{null}} deference is allowed, for example the expression {code}Order.Customer?.Name{code} defines that each {{Order}} should have a {{Customer}} and only the {{Name}} of the {{Customer}} is optional.

The difference of new operator from the existing null coalescing {{??}} operator is in its ability to short-circuit evaluation.

So, safe navigation operator would be a helpful syntaxic sugar which in my opinion does not overlap with an existing functionality.




--
This message was sent by Atlassian JIRA
(v7.6.3#76005)