[GROOVY-2323] Parser fails to recognize function calls properly

• Type: Wish
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Fix Version/s: 4.x
• Component/s: parser
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Dirk Eßer
• Created: 20/Nov/07 06:53
• Updated: 02/May/17 02:25

Description

Problem: Under certain circumstances (names starting with upper case letters) the parser fails to recognize certain function calls. I did not file it as bug, though, because after a closer look at the parser code, I found, that the reason for this behaviour is actually by design (and might be pretty hard to change; OTOH, this hack is truly gross enough to reward being filed as change-this! request. It makes you wonder, how many traps like that might be hidden somewhere else in the Groovy sources).

Before having seen the parser code, I was completely surprised, when some of my code failed to compile because of this:

class OldJavaLegacyCode {

    public def GenerateSomething(ob) {
        println("Old method ${ob}")
    }

    public def GENERATE_SOMETHING(ob) {
        println("Old method ${ob}")
    }

    public def generateSomething(ob) {
        println("Old method ${ob}")
    }
}

class ExtendsLegacyCode extends OldJavaLegacyCode {

    def wontCompile(sequence) {
        sequence.each { GENERATE_SOMETHING it }
    }

    def wontCompileNeither(sequence) {
        sequence.each { GenerateSomething it }
    }

    def willCompile(sequence) {
        sequence.each { generateSomething it }
    }
}

Issue Links

• relates to: GROOVY-2324 grammar forces usage of lowercase names for commands