MethodsAndObjectConstructionNotSupported (A14.6.2-8) should allow getX()

• Key: JDO-345
• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Resolution: Fixed
• Priority: Major
• Assignee: Michael Bouschen
• Reporter: Ilan Kirsh
• Component/s: tck2
• Fix Version/s: JDO 2 maintenance release 1, JDO 2 TCK challenge fixes

Description

According to the spec:

 "Methods, including object construction, are not supported, except for Collection, String, and Map methods documented below. Implementations might choose to support non-mutating method calls as non-standard extensions."

However, MethodsAndObjectConstructionNotSupported expects an exception for method getX().

Comments

[Craig Russell]

I agree that the test is invalid. There is nothing else of value in the test, so I propose to drop the test from the TCK.

[Michael Bouschen]

I agree we should drop the test from the TCK.

It might make sense to have a negative test case with a query calling a mutating method such as Collection.add. Calling a mutating method is not allowed in JDOQL.

[Ilan Kirsh]

I also think that this test should be dropped. A negative test might cause a new problem - how the implementation can check if a method is mutating in the general case? I think we already have enough byte code processing in the enhancer.

[Craig Russell]

I think a word about why we used the term "mutating method" is in order here.

The expert group did not want to allow the user and implementation to use query as a back door to a generalized UPDATE facility, so we said specifically that mutating methods were not allowed, even in vendor extensions. That said, there are only a small number of standard mutating methods that return a value, and hence even could be used in a filter.

So I think we are safe in dropping this test and we can debate the value of a new test later on if someone wants to raise the issue again.

On a second thought, maybe the test should be preserved as a negative test but refer to non existing methods? In this case an implementation that supports additional method as an extension should still throw an exception.

[Ilan Kirsh]

Can this be resolved for maintenance release 1? Simply by discarding the test or by switching to non existing methods?

[Michael Bouschen]

Attached you find a patch for review. I changed the test to call methods Collection.add and Collection.remove that are known to be mutating.

[Ilan Kirsh]

Thanks. A tiny comment - the import in line 24 (import org.apache.jdo.tck.JDO_Test) is not needed.

[Craig Russell]

The patch looks good.

[Michael Bouschen]

Cleaned up the imports and checked in the patch into the trunk and into branch 2.0.1 (see revision 453263).