[UIMA-1839] String-subtype features can't be set to null?

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.3
• Fix Version/s: 2.3.1SDK
• Component/s: Core Java Framework
• Assignee: Marshall Schor
• Reporter: Adam P. Lally
• Created: 14/Jul/10 14:29
• Updated: 22/Sep/10 19:21
• Resolved: 16/Jul/10 19:38

Description

If you try to set a string-subtype feature to null, you get a NullPointerException:
java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.lang.String.compareTo(String.java:1167)
at java.lang.String.compareTo(String.java:92)
at java.util.Arrays.binarySearch0(Arrays.java:2001)
at java.util.Arrays.binarySearch(Arrays.java:1943)
at org.apache.uima.cas.impl.CASImpl.ll_setStringValue(CASImpl.java:3203)
at org.apache.uima.cas.impl.FeatureStructureImpl.setStringValue(FeatureStructureImpl.java:130)

The documentation doesn't specifically address whether this is allowed, but my intuition was that it should be. For one thing, a string-subtype feature can have the value null when it is uninitialized, so why shouldn't I be able to explicitly set it to null?

A simple way to replicate is to add the line
fs.setStringValue(stringSetFeat, null);
to the test case method StringSubtypeTest.testCas()