Thanks Hugo for the nice tutorial. In the last example, are you trying to
saying this (luckily this time == works although not recommended)
public class App
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Integer a = 1;
Integer b = 1;
if (a == b) {
System.out.println("Equal!");
} else {
System.out.println("Different!");
}
}
}
-min
On 2/25/14 5:41 AM, "Hugo Trippaers" <h...@trippaers.nl> wrote:
>Anti-pattern:
>An anti-pattern (or antipattern) is a common response to a recurring
>problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly
>counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by Andrew Koenig, was
>inspired by a book, Design Patterns, in which the authors highlighted a
>number of design patterns in software development that they considered to
>be highly reliable and effective.
>‹ source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
>
>
>Here at Schuberg we spend quite some time going through bugs reports from
>automated scanners, you have probably seen the mails coming by on the ML.
>As part of our work we have encountered a number of problems that keep on
>popping up in the code base. So here is my first attempt to clarify why a
>certain pattern is wrong and hopefully help developers to avoid this.
>
>So first up is the equality operator, ==. This operator is commonly used
>in many languages to compare if two items are equal. The trick with this
>operator in java is to know exactly what you are comparing, because it
>matters.
>
>Consider this piece of code:
>
>public class App
>{
> public static void main(String[] args)
> {
> int a = 1;
> int b = 1;
>
> if (a == b) {
> System.out.println("Equal!");
> } else {
> System.out.println("Different!");
> }
> }
>}
>
>The expected outcome is ³Equal!² and indeed it prints just that. Now
>consider the following code:
>
>public class App
>{
> public static void main(String[] args)
> {
> Integer a = new Integer(1);
> Integer b = new Integer(1);
>
> if (a == b) {
> System.out.println("Equal!");
> } else {
> System.out.println("Different!");
> }
> }
>}
>
>The result of running this bit of code is ³Different!². With == you are
>telling the java compiler to compare the two variables. The variable are
>references to Objects, so it will do exactly what you tell it to do,
>compare the two object references. As you give it two different objects,
>the result willl be ³Different!². The correct way of comparing the
>contents of two objects is to use the equals method. Consider the
>following piece of code:
>
>public class App
>{
> public static void main(String[] args)
> {
> Integer a = new Integer(1);
> Integer b = new Integer(1);
>
> if (a.equals(b)) {
> System.out.println("Equal!");
> } else {
> System.out.println("Different!");
> }
> }
>}
>
>
>This will again be ³Equals!².
>
>Why is this often a problem? There are a lot or reasons why these bugs
>came to exist in CloudStack (or any other project). For example somebody
>might cause this bug by changing the return type of a function from long
>to Long. The first one is a primitive which can be compared with == and
>the second one is an Object which might result in another comparison than
>you intended. Findbugs will catch these types of comparisons and warn you
>for them. See commit d1efdca50622a0b67ae1a286aad3297b1c748e9e for an
>example.
>
>
>
>Oh and what does this print?
>
>public class App
>{
> public static void main(String[] args)
> {
> Integer a = 1;
> Integer b = 1;
>
> if (a.equals(b)) {
> System.out.println("Equal!");
> } else {
> System.out.println("Different!");
> }
> }
>}
>
>
>Surprise!, it prints ³Equals!². This is a boxed integer and java keeps a
>pool of these so internally the object is cached and both a and b get the
>same objects assigned to them by the internal boxing logic. Just never
>rely on this! It only works in specific cases and is implementation
>specific per JVM vendor and JVM version.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Hugo
>
>
>P.S. If you have another anti pattern feel free to post em in this thread.
>
