[GROOVY-8107] Binary incompatibility problems between compiled code in Groovy 2.4.7 vs 2.4.9

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.4.9
• Fix Version/s: 2.4.10
• Assignee: Paul King
• Reporter: Graeme Rocher
• Created: 03/Mar/17 08:29
• Updated: 18/Mar/17 09:56
• Resolved: 08/Mar/17 05:07

Description

There are currently various binary incompatibility problems that are presenting a challenge for us moving forward with upgrading to Groovy 2.4.9 in Grails.

One of them is Groovy traits compiled with Groovy 2.4.9 are not usable in Groovy 2.4.7 due to the following exception:

Error:Groovyc: While compiling tests of grails-datastore-gorm-hibernate5_test: BUG! exception in phase 'semantic analysis' in source unit '/Users/graemerocher/grails/gorm-hibernate5/grails-datastore-gorm-hibernate5/src/test/groovy/grails/gorm/tests/jpa/SimpleJpaEntitySpec.groovy' null
	at org.codehaus.groovy.control.CompilationUnit.applyToSourceUnits(CompilationUnit.java:932)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.control.CompilationUnit.doPhaseOperation(CompilationUnit.java:590)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.control.CompilationUnit.processPhaseOperations(CompilationUnit.java:566)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.control.CompilationUnit.compile(CompilationUnit.java:543)
...
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.codehaus.groovy.ast.expr.VariableExpression.<init>(VariableExpression.java:64)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.transform.trait.TraitComposer.applyTrait(TraitComposer.java:247)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.transform.trait.TraitComposer.doExtendTraits(TraitComposer.java:111)
	at org.grails.compiler.gorm.GormEntityTransformation.visit(GormEntityTransformation.groovy:338)
	at org.grails.compiler.gorm.JpaGormEntityTransformation.visit(JpaGormEntityTransformation.groovy:50)
	at org.grails.compiler.gorm.GlobalJpaEntityTransform.visitClass(GlobalJpaEntityTransform.groovy:43)
	at org.grails.compiler.gorm.GlobalJpaEntityTransform.visit(GlobalJpaEntityTransform.groovy:35)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.transform.ASTTransformationVisitor$3.call(ASTTransformationVisitor.java:319)
	at org.codehaus.groovy.control.CompilationUnit.applyToSourceUnits(CompilationUnit.java:928)
	... 22 more

This is an issue and IMO there should never be binary incompatible breaking changes between different patch releases of Groovy 2.4.x.

The other issue is https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/GROOVY-8048

Which is marked as fixed, but currently code already compiled in Groovy 2.4.7 is throwing a NPE using 2.4.9 such as:

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: null
        at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.DefaultGroovyMethods.leftShift(DefaultGroovyMethods.java:12204)
        at grails.artefact.Interceptor$Trait$Helper.matchAll(Interceptor.groovy:109)

We can't really ask people to start recompiling existing published libraries for a patch release of Groovy so are looking for a path forward with these problems.

It is my opinion that we should be aim to never break binary compatibility in a major release let alone in a patch release.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #508