[BEANUTILS-411] BeanUtilsBean.setProperty throws IllegalArgumentException if getter of nested property returns null

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.8.0, 1.8.1, 1.8.2, 1.8.3
• Fix Version/s: 1.9.5
• Component/s: Bean / Property Utils
• Labels: beanutil

Environment

Apache Struts 1.3.10 (latest) uses commons-beanutils 1.8.0

• Assignee: Benedikt Ritter
• Reporter: Marcus Zander
• Created: 20/Mar/12 13:29
• Updated: 14/Apr/24 12:49
• Resolved: 03/Mar/13 13:15

Description

The issue is like #BEANUTILS-331, BEANUTILS-339 where BeanUtils.populate() -> BeanUtilsBean.setProperty throws an IllegalArgumentException when it should not.

error situation (see attached JUnitTest):
BeanUtilsBean.setProperty(bean,"foo.bar", value) with a nested property "foo.bar" where bean.getFoo() returns null.
Line 903 (in 1.8.0 -1.8.3) getPropertyUtils().getProperty(target, resolver.next(name));
returns null (because bean.getFoo() returns null) which is not handled correctly.
The Exception is thrown in line 963 because target == null.

expected:
SetProperty should silently return like in the case the property does not exist.

background:
BeanUtils.populate(), BeanUtilsBean.setProperty are used by Struts to populate HTTP-Request-Parameters to form beans (form backing objects). The request sent by a browser when clicking a <input type="image" name="imgLink"...> contains parameters "imgLink.x" and "imgLink.y". These request parameters should not let to an error when populating to a bean which has the property "imgLink".
The application should be able to process these parameters after bean populating, which is not possible now because populate fails.

Test case to reproduce:
public class BeanUtilsBeanTest extends TestCase
{
public void testSetProperty()
throws Exception

{ DummyBean testBean = new DummyBean(); // nested==null BeanUtilsBean instance = new BeanUtilsBean(); /* fails with java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No bean specified * Reason: getPropertyUtils().getProperty(target, resolver.next(name)); returnes null * because DummyBean.getImgLink() returns null */ instance.setProperty(testBean, "imgLink.x", "1"); }

public class DummyBean
{
private String imgLink = null; // stays null

public String getImgLink ()

{ return imgLink; }

public void setImgLink(String imgLink)

{ this.imgLink = imgLink; }

}
}

suggestion for a fix:
Return after line 903 if getProperty returns null and therefor target becomes null.