[PLUTO-515] Retrieving user information request attribute results in NPE if no <user-attribute> elements defined

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.0.0
• Fix Version/s: 2.0.0
• Component/s: portlet container
• Environment: JDK 1.5.0_16, Tomcat 5.5.27
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Brian DeHamer
• Created: 20/Oct/08 17:45
• Updated: 07/Apr/09 03:13
• Resolved: 07/Apr/09 03:13

Description

If you have not declared any <user-attribute> elements in the portlet deployment descriptor (portlet.xml) and then attempt to retrieve the user information Map from the PortletRequest object a NullPointerException is thrown:

java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.pluto.core.DefaultRequestAttributeService.createUserInfoMap(DefaultRequestAttributeService.java:196)
at org.apache.pluto.core.DefaultRequestAttributeService.getAttribute(DefaultRequestAttributeService.java:80)
at org.apache.pluto.internal.impl.PortletRequestImpl.getAttribute(PortletRequestImpl.java:436)

In the createUserInfoMap() method of the DefaultRequestAttributeService class, the getUserAttribute() method of the PortletDD is invoked and the returned List is used in a foreach loop – however, this return value is not checked for a null value before it is used in the loop.

As a workaround you can make sure that you always declare at least one <user-attribute> element in your portlet.xml file – this will ensure that the list returned by getUserAttribute() is no null.