[BEANUTILS-519] setProperty fails silently on null maps

• Type: Bug
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.9.3
• Component/s: Bean / Property Utils
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Emmanuel Bourg
• Created: 02/May/19 14:20
• Updated: 02/May/19 14:20

Description

Adding an element to a null map with BeanUtils.setProperty() neither result in an automatically instantiated Map containing the specified element, nor to a NullPointerException. The method simply fails and returns silently. If the map isn't created on the fly an exception should be thrown at least.

Here is a test case illustrating the issue:

public class BeanUtilsTest extends TestCase {
    
    private static class Bean {
        public Map<String, String> elements;
    }
    
    public void testSetPropertyWithNullMap() throws Exception {
        Bean b = new Bean();
        assertNull(b.elements);
        
        BeanUtils.setProperty(b, "elements(FOO)", "BAR");

        assertNotNull("Map is still null after calling BeanUtils.setProperty()", b.elements);
        assertTrue("Element not found", b.elements.containsKey("FOO"));
    }
}