[EMAIL-205] Possible Dead Code in EmailUtils.encodeURL()?

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 1.6.0
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Adam Emerson
• Created: 27/Oct/22 19:13
• Updated: 03/Dec/23 14:30
• Resolved: 03/Dec/23 13:46

Description

Hello,

I was doing some testing on the library for a university project and came across what may be some dead code in the EmailUtils.encodeURL() function.

The code in question is the if block at line 298:

for (final byte c : input.getBytes(US_ASCII))
{
    int b = c;
    if (b < 0)
    {
        b = 256 + b;
    }
...

I realize that the

b = 256 + b;

condition is there as an attempt to handle the fact that bytes are signed in Java, however, when I look at the implementation of

input.getBytes(US_ASCII),

I don't see any case that it can return a negative byte value.  getBytes(US_ASCII) returns a '?' character for any non-ascii character, thus preventing an overflow that may result in a negative byte ('?' has a value of 63).  This would mean that the the contents of the if statement are unreachable.

If anyone with more experience has the time to take a look at this I would greatly appreciate it. For my own education, I would love to see a test case in which a negative byte value would be returned here.

Thanks!

 

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #153