[GROOVY-10707] Regression in property access for conflicting isXxx and getXxx accessors

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Information Provided
• Affects Version/s: 4.0.3
• Assignee: Eric Milles
• Reporter: Kyle Moore
• Created: 27/Jul/22 23:47
• Updated: 11/Nov/22 16:31
• Resolved: 10/Aug/22 00:34

Description

In upgrading our codebase from Groovy 3.0.11 to 4.0.3, we noticed a regression in method selection when using property access. This toy example illustrates the issue:

class Base {
   boolean isFirstChild() { return true }
}

class Sub extends Base {
   String getFirstChild() { return "hello" }
}

class SubSub extends Sub { }

assert new SubSub().firstChild instanceof String

 

This code passes in Groovy 3 but fails in Groovy 4. We observed this real-world behavior with xerces:xercesImpl:2.12.1 where an instance of class org.apache.xerces.dom.ParentNode has both methods getFirstChild() returning a Node and isFirstChild() returning a boolean.

As a workaround, we can access getFirstChild() by name instead of using property access, but in discussions with paulk this behavior change may be unintended.

Issue Links

• is related to: GROOVY-7300 CompileStatic doesn't call property accessors on super classes correctly
• is related to: GROOVY-10462 Groovy should not generate both `getFlag` and `isFlag` for a Boolean field.
• is related to: GROOVY-1736 Accessing superclass properties causes stack overflow
• is related to: GROOVY-5245 Inconsistency with accessing issers as properties
• is related to: GROOVY-6097 Using super.propertyName gives a MissingMethodException when the property is a boolean and uses the "isPropertyName" naming convention.
• is related to: GROOVY-9382 Inconsistent support for [Bb]oolean properties
• is related to: GROOVY-10133 Inconsistent method selection for [Bb]oolean properties
• is related to: GROOVY-7924 groovyc fails with NPE for dynamic method/property use on super
• relates to: GROOVY-10821 Potential regression for isser/getter preference in classes with an isser and a not boolean getter for a property of the same name