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Posted to users@groovy.apache.org by Ralph Johnson <jo...@cs.uiuc.edu> on 2015/11/17 20:04:45 UTC

change in definition of Groovy?

I am in the process of converting a large Groovy program from 2.1 to 2.4.
A year or two ago I converted it from (I think) 1.8 to 2.1.

I found an odd assignment.

obj.foo?.fee = v

The code assumed that if obj.foo was null, this assignment statement was
skipped.   It does not work that way in 2.4, and I had to rewrite it to
make the code work.  I had no idea that you could use the safe
dereferencing operator on the left-hand-side of an assignment, I always
thought it was only on the right-hand-side.   I imagine that the author of
this code was exploiting a bug in Groovy, that Groovy was never supposed to
allow this.   Somewhere between 2.1 and 2.4, this bug got fixed.    Or was
there a change in the definition of Groovy?   Or am I completely missing
the point?

-Ralph Johnson

Re: change in definition of Groovy?

Posted by Ralph Johnson <jo...@cs.uiuc.edu>.
Thanks for your reply!   I had made (and tested) a fix before sending the
mail, but apparently the bug wasn't what I thought it was.  So, I'll have
to dig deeper.

-Ralph

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Tankerbay <ta...@gmail.com> wrote:

> +1 for sdkman.io!
>
> Sent from my phone.  Please excuse the mess.
> On Nov 17, 2015 11:16 AM, "Søren Berg Glasius" <so...@glasius.dk> wrote:
>
>> Hi Ralph,
>>
>> Had to fire up Groovy Console (2.4.5) and try it out:
>>
>> class Obj {
>>    Map foo
>> }
>>
>> obj = new Obj()
>>
>> obj.foo?.fee = 'some value'
>>
>> assert obj.foo?.fee == null
>>
>> I do not see an error, so unless I misunderstand your problem, I do not
>> think it's wrong.
>>
>> To verify, I did the same with Groovy 2.1.9, same result. Then with
>> Groovy 1.8.9, just to be sure, also same result.
>>
>> PS: Just got to love sdkman.io when testing such code....
>>
>> Best regards / Med venlig hilsen,
>> Søren Berg Glasius
>>
>> Hedevej 1, Gl. Rye, 8680 Ry, Denmark
>> Mobile: +45 40 44 91 88, Skype: sbglasius
>> --- Press ESC once to quit - twice to save the changes.
>>
>> On November 17, 2015 at 8:04:55 PM, Ralph Johnson (johnson@cs.uiuc.edu)
>> wrote:
>>
>> I am in the process of converting a large Groovy program from 2.1 to 2.4.
>>   A year or two ago I converted it from (I think) 1.8 to 2.1.
>>
>> I found an odd assignment.
>>
>> obj.foo?.fee = v
>>
>> The code assumed that if obj.foo was null, this assignment statement was
>> skipped.   It does not work that way in 2.4, and I had to rewrite it to
>> make the code work.  I had no idea that you could use the safe
>> dereferencing operator on the left-hand-side of an assignment, I always
>> thought it was only on the right-hand-side.   I imagine that the author of
>> this code was exploiting a bug in Groovy, that Groovy was never supposed to
>> allow this.   Somewhere between 2.1 and 2.4, this bug got fixed.    Or was
>> there a change in the definition of Groovy?   Or am I completely missing
>> the point?
>>
>> -Ralph Johnson
>>
>>

Re: change in definition of Groovy?

Posted by Tankerbay <ta...@gmail.com>.
+1 for sdkman.io!

Sent from my phone.  Please excuse the mess.
On Nov 17, 2015 11:16 AM, "Søren Berg Glasius" <so...@glasius.dk> wrote:

> Hi Ralph,
>
> Had to fire up Groovy Console (2.4.5) and try it out:
>
> class Obj {
>    Map foo
> }
>
> obj = new Obj()
>
> obj.foo?.fee = 'some value'
>
> assert obj.foo?.fee == null
>
> I do not see an error, so unless I misunderstand your problem, I do not
> think it's wrong.
>
> To verify, I did the same with Groovy 2.1.9, same result. Then with Groovy
> 1.8.9, just to be sure, also same result.
>
> PS: Just got to love sdkman.io when testing such code....
>
> Best regards / Med venlig hilsen,
> Søren Berg Glasius
>
> Hedevej 1, Gl. Rye, 8680 Ry, Denmark
> Mobile: +45 40 44 91 88, Skype: sbglasius
> --- Press ESC once to quit - twice to save the changes.
>
> On November 17, 2015 at 8:04:55 PM, Ralph Johnson (johnson@cs.uiuc.edu)
> wrote:
>
> I am in the process of converting a large Groovy program from 2.1 to 2.4.
>   A year or two ago I converted it from (I think) 1.8 to 2.1.
>
> I found an odd assignment.
>
> obj.foo?.fee = v
>
> The code assumed that if obj.foo was null, this assignment statement was
> skipped.   It does not work that way in 2.4, and I had to rewrite it to
> make the code work.  I had no idea that you could use the safe
> dereferencing operator on the left-hand-side of an assignment, I always
> thought it was only on the right-hand-side.   I imagine that the author of
> this code was exploiting a bug in Groovy, that Groovy was never supposed to
> allow this.   Somewhere between 2.1 and 2.4, this bug got fixed.    Or was
> there a change in the definition of Groovy?   Or am I completely missing
> the point?
>
> -Ralph Johnson
>
>

Re: change in definition of Groovy?

Posted by Søren Berg Glasius <so...@glasius.dk>.
Hi Ralph,

Had to fire up Groovy Console (2.4.5) and try it out:

class Obj {
   Map foo
}

obj = new Obj()

obj.foo?.fee = 'some value'

assert obj.foo?.fee == null

I do not see an error, so unless I misunderstand your problem, I do not think it's wrong. 

To verify, I did the same with Groovy 2.1.9, same result. Then with Groovy 1.8.9, just to be sure, also same result. 

PS: Just got to love sdkman.io when testing such code....

Best regards / Med venlig hilsen,
Søren Berg Glasius

Hedevej 1, Gl. Rye, 8680 Ry, Denmark
Mobile: +45 40 44 91 88, Skype: sbglasius
--- Press ESC once to quit - twice to save the changes.

On November 17, 2015 at 8:04:55 PM, Ralph Johnson (johnson@cs.uiuc.edu) wrote:

I am in the process of converting a large Groovy program from 2.1 to 2.4.   A year or two ago I converted it from (I think) 1.8 to 2.1.

I found an odd assignment.

obj.foo?.fee = v

The code assumed that if obj.foo was null, this assignment statement was skipped.   It does not work that way in 2.4, and I had to rewrite it to make the code work.  I had no idea that you could use the safe dereferencing operator on the left-hand-side of an assignment, I always thought it was only on the right-hand-side.   I imagine that the author of this code was exploiting a bug in Groovy, that Groovy was never supposed to allow this.   Somewhere between 2.1 and 2.4, this bug got fixed.    Or was there a change in the definition of Groovy?   Or am I completely missing the point?

-Ralph Johnson