[VELOCITY-874] Subtraction doesn't work as expected

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Duplicate
• Environment: VTL in user macro in Atlassian Confluence 5.9.4
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Alexander Rosenberg
• Created: 09/May/16 03:58
• Updated: 09/May/16 08:18
• Resolved: 09/May/16 08:17

Description

This works as expected:

## @noparams

#set ($n = 5)
#set ($m = $n+1)
<p>$m</p>

Output: <p>6</p>

However, subtraction doesn't work:

## @noparams

#set ($n = 5)
#set ($m = $n-1)
<p>$m</p>

Output: <p>$m</p>

From SO Q&A #15448108, it appears that this behavior is due to the parser treating the hyphen/dash/minus-sign as part of the identifier, but certainly an exception should be made for when the "identifier" ends with only digits and/or hyphens.

Another case:

## @noparams

#set ($n = 5)
#set ($m = $n- 1)
<p>$m</p>

In this case we get an all too familiar ParseErrorException:

org.apache.velocity.exception.ParseErrorException: Encountered "1" at getRenderedContent[line 4, column 16]
Was expecting one of:
    <RPAREN> ...
    "-" ...
    "+" ...
    "*" ...
    "/" ...
    "%" ...
    <LOGICAL_AND> ...
    <LOGICAL_OR> ...
    <LOGICAL_LT> ...
    <LOGICAL_LE> ...
    <LOGICAL_GT> ...
    <LOGICAL_GE> ...
    <LOGICAL_EQUALS> ...
    <LOGICAL_NOT_EQUALS> ...

        at org.apache.velocity.runtime.RuntimeInstance.evaluate(RuntimeInstance.java:1202)
        at org.apache.velocity.runtime.RuntimeInstance.evaluate(RuntimeInstance.java:1164)
        at org.apache.velocity.app.VelocityEngine.evaluate(VelocityEngine.java:219)
        at com.atlassian.confluence.util.velocity.VelocityUtils.writeRenderedContent(VelocityUtils.java:148)
        at com.atlassian.confluence.util.velocity.VelocityUtils.getRenderedContent(VelocityUtils.java:130)
        at com.atlassian.confluence.util.velocity.VelocityUtils.getRenderedContent(VelocityUtils.java:117)
        at com.atlassian.confluence.util.velocity.VelocityUtils.getRenderedContent(VelocityUtils.java:113)
        at com.atlassian.confluence.macro.GenericVelocityMacro.execute(GenericVelocityMacro.java:101)
~~~snipped~~~

This bug is related to (or possibly the same as) bug 873.

Issue Links

• is related to: VELOCITY-873 Subtraction without spaces results in parse error
• links to: subtraction is not working with velocity template