[Jsynthlib-devel] Possible bug in Driver.java

[Joe E. <jo...@em...>]

Around line 290 in Driver,java is the following method createPatches():

>    public IPatch[] createPatches(SysexMessage[] msgs) {
>         byte[] sysex = MidiUtil.sysexMessagesToByteArray(msgs);
>         IPatch[] patarray = DriverUtil.createPatches(sysex, getDevice());
>
>         // Maybe you don't get the expected patch!
>         // Check all devices/drivers again! Call fixpatch() if
> supportsPatch
>         // returns false.
>         // XXX Why don't we simply cause error? Hiroo
>         for (int k = 0; k < patarray.length; k++) {
>    ...

Due to a mistake on my part, I made a driver which didn't recognize the
sysex that I sent it. As a result, DriverUtil.createPatches() returned a
null which was then assigned to patarray[]. This caused an exception
when execution got to the patarray.length.

I didn't want to mess with this, since I didn't write it and I'm not
sure how it was intended to work.

Granted, it was a bug in my driver which exposed this bug.... but I
still think that this is a bug. It should handle this more gracefully.
What's the preferred behavior here? Should Driver.createPatches check
for a null patarray[], or should DriverUtil.createPatches be reworked so
as to guarantee that it never returns a null?

- Joe